BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME
FROM THE

SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND

THE GIFT OF

Mettrg W+ Sage

1891

JL-&£2jXJOl lyj/?.l.

The original of this book is in
the Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029181762

THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT

The Letter and The Spirit

EIGHT LECTURES

DELIVERED BEFORE

THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

IN THE YEAR MDCCCLXXXVIII.

ON THE FOUNDATION OF

THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON, M.A.

CANON OF SALISBURY

ROBERT EDWARD BARTLETT, M.A.

LATE FELLOW AND TUTOR OF TRINITY COLLEGE

RIVINGTONS
WATERLOO PLACE, LONDON

MDCCCLXXXVIII

EXTRACT

FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT

OF THE LATE

REV. JOHN BAMPTON,

CANON OF SALISBURY.

" . . .1 give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the Chancellor,
Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford for ever, to have
and to hold all and singular the said Lands or Estates upon trust,
and to the intents and purposes hereinafter mentioned ; that is to
say, I will and appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of
Oxford for the time being shall take and receive all the rents, issues,
and profits thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations, and necessary
deductions made) that he pay all the remainder to the endowment of
eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, to be established for ever in the said
University, and to be performed in the manner following :

" I direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in Easter
Term, a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads of Colleges only,
and by no others, in the room adjoining to the Printing-House,
between the hours of ten in the morning and two in the afternoon, to
preach eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, the year following, at St.
Mary's in Oxford, between the commencement of the last month
in Lent Term, and the end of the third week in Act Term.

" Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture
Sermons shall be preached upon either of the following Subjects — to
confirm and establish the Christian Faith, and to confute all heretics

vi EXTRACT FROM CANON BAMFTON'S WILL

and schismatics — upon the divine authority of the holy Scriptures —
upon the authority of the writings of the primitive Fathers, as to the
faith and practice of the primitive Church — upon the Divinity of our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ — upon the Divinity of the Holy Ghost
— upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as comprehended in the
Apostles' and Nicene Creeds.

" Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lecture
Sermons shall be always printed, within two months after they are
preached ; and one copy shall be given to the Chancellor of the
University, and one copy to the Head of every College, and one
copy to the Mayor of the city of Oxford, and one copy to be put
into the Bodleian Library ; and the expense of printing them shall
be paid out of the revenue of the Land or Estates given for establish-
ing the Divinity Lecture Sermons ; and the Preacher shall not be
paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are printed.

" Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be qualified to
preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath taken the
degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the two Universities
of Oxford or Cambridge ; and that the same person shall never
preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons twice."

CONTENTS

LECTURE I.

Introduction.

St. Paul's life broken in two by his conversion I

Hence, his ideas take an antithetical form 2

The letter and the spirit proposed as the subject of these lectures . 3

St. Paul's use of the terms 4

Contains the germs of the later development 8

Their use by the Greek Fathers n

The modern use 13

Contrast between the outward and the inward — the form and

the essence 14

The letter and the spirit in the Church 16

„ „ „ University 20

LECTURE II.

The Letter and the Spirit in Scripture Exegesis.

..St. Paul did not contemplate the Christian faith as dependent on

•"litten documents 25

Human language must act as a limitation to the free Spirit ... 26

Hence, sacred Books cannot express fully the mind of the Spirit 27
The Qld Covenant a dispensation of the letter. Yet the Spirit spake

by the prophets 27

viii CONTENTS

PAGE

The Jewish view of the sacred Books. How it affected the Christian

view 2 &

The Church inherited the traditions of Judaism. The two canons

gradually merged into one 2 9

The Christian Scriptures regarded with the same reverence as the

Jewish . 3 1

The view of the mediaeval Church 3 2

The Reformation tended to produce stricter views of inspiration . 33
Tendency of modern views to give less prominence to the Old

Testament 34

Instances of Messianic prophecies 37

The allegorical interpretation of Scripture. Professing to be

spiritual, it becomes a caricature of the letter 39

True use of the Old Testament 46

LECTURE III.

The Letter and the Spirit in Scripture Exegesis— {continued).

The canon of Scripture grew up in an informal way 51

Variety in the Bible as contrasted with the Koran 53

The Bible the writing of inspired men. What this implies ... 53

Inspiration not confined to written documents, nor to any age . . 54
Scripture to be used, not as a formal treatise, but as a sacred

literature 55

Example of Pearson on the Creed. Of Harmonies of the Gospels . 55
Use of the Old Testament in the New —

1 Cor. xiv. 21 and Isa. xxviii. II, 12 59

Rom. iv. 3 and Gen. xv. 6 61

2 Cor. iii. 13 and Exod. xxxiv. 29, 30 61

St. Paul's doctrine of predestination. Rom. ix.-xi. to be

understood, not after the letter, but after the spirit .... 62

Justification by faith (,-

The irapovcia of Christ 66

The literal and spiritual use of the Bible 69

Contrast between Mohammedanism and Christianity j l

The study of Scripture not less necessary now than formerly ... 73

CONTENTS ix

LECTURE IV.
The Letter and the Spirit in the Church.

PAGE

Recapitulation of previous Lectures 76

Distinction between the end and the means. Easily overlooked in

politics and in religion 77

What is the essence of the Church ? 79

It is a family and a kingdom 82

Not dependent on a special form of organization 83

Argument from the New Testament 84

Argument from Church history go

Hooker's view of Episcopacy 92

The principle as stated by Bishop Lightfoot 92

Exclusive claims of Episcopacy untenable in the light of modern

Christendom 94

LECTURE V.

The Letter and the Spirit in the Sacraments.

The new covenant spiritual 102

Hence, in its essence, independent of forms 103

But this is an ideal. And, in actual life, forms are indispensable 103
The kingdom of heaven implies that its subjects have relations to

the King and to each other 104

These relations set forth in the Sacraments —

Baptism — the rite of initiation 105

Spoken of as regeneration 106

A natural and significant metaphor 107

Contrast between primitive and modern Baptism .... 107

Baptism points to the ideal rather than the actual . . . 112

The Eucharist. One spirit under many forms 113

Contrast between the primitive Eucharist and the modern

Mass 113

Institution of the Eucharist 115

The discourse in John vi. Its relation to the Eucharist . 116

CONTENTS

PAGE

122

The spiritual view of the Sacraments

Variations in form inevitable I2 5

The history of the Eucharist a history of the inner life of

Christendom I2 3

Its significance for us 126

LECTURE VI.

The Letter and the Spirit in Creeds and Confessions
of Faith.

What is religion ? 131

Growth of a science of religion 131

Theology progressive 134

The earliest Christians had neither sacred Books nor formulas of

belief 136

Creeds originally baptismal 136

Then Eucharistic 137

Finally polemical 137

When Creeds become exclusive they cease to be Catholic .... 138

Finality not attainable. Instance of the doctrine of the Atonement 139

The true object and use of Creeds. Triumphant hymns of faith . . 142

The " Quicunque vult." Not suitable for public worship .... 143

Progress of religious knowledge. The doctrine of development . . 150

Our attitude with reference to Creeds 153

LECTURE VII.

The Letter and the Spirit in Christian Worship
and Life.

The first idea of God, as of One like ourselves 156

Hence, attempts to propitiate Him by offerings 156

The second, as of a righteous King 157

Hence, the worship of a right life 157

The third, as of a loving Father 157

Hence, the worship of the heart 157

CONTENTS

PAGE

Religion is the bond that unites us first to God and then to our

fellow-men jc8

Advantage of ancient over modern forms of worship in respect of

Catholicity icn

Yet forms non-essential !6j

Worship in the Name of Christ 163

Theism is not more but less spiritual than Christianity 164

Instances of spiritual view of worship —

Prayers for the dead 166

Fasting Communion 167

Evening Communion 169

The letter and the spirit in common life 170

Casuistry 171

The freedom of the Spirit 172

The same principle applied to politics 173

,, „ „ education 174

Tendency to rely upon system 175

Sunday observance 176

Almsgiving 177

Responsibility of freedom 170

LECTURE VIII.

The Church of the Future.

Recapitulation of Fourth Lecture. The Church in its essence is the

people 180

This principle reasserted at the Reformation. Each nation as-
sumed the right to revise its ecclesiastical constitution . . . 181

National character of the English Reformation 183

The Church reconstituted at the Restoration, not on national but

on sectarian lines 185

The Church is still in its childhood. The Church of the future will
combine many elements. Disestablishment no remedy for
sectarianism 186

The best basis of Christian union will be found in association for

beneficence 191

xii CONTENTS

PAGE

The growth in Oxford of a sense of responsibility for less-favoured

classes '93

Gradual widening of Christian thought I 9^>

We need to have faith in God's care for the future of the Church.
Our duty is to be patient. The Church of England specially

called to mediate between the old and the new 197

Conclusion 200

Note to Lecture VIII 203

Appendix 207

LECTURE I.

INTRODUCTION.

" Who also made us sufficient as ministers of a New Covenant ;
not of the letter, but of the spirit : for the letter killeth, but the
spirit giveth life."— 2 Cor. iii. 6 (E.V.).

The heavenly vision which appeared to Saul of Tarsus
on the way as he journeyed to Damascus was not a
mere turning-point in his life ; rather it was the abrupt
ending of one life, and the beginning of another. He
was indeed the same man, with the same absolute de-
votion to the cause that he believed to be true, the same
strange compound of weakness and strength, the same
man as an Apostle that he had been as a persecutor of
Christ : but he had been converted, turned about ; he
saw all things from an opposite point of view ; what
things had been gain to him, those he counted loss ; old
things were passed away, and all things were become
new.

This fault in the strata of his life explains one of the
most noticeable characteristics of his phraseology. With
such a breach of continuity in his thoughts and ex-
periences, it was natural that all things should seem to
him double one against another; and that his ideas

B

2 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. I.

should range themselves in antithetical form, and
embody themselves in opposite poles, coinciding with
his old and his new life. Thus, law and grace, faith
and works, faith and sight, sin and grace, death and
life, the old man and the new man, the flesh and the
spirit, the letter and the spirit — these became to St. Paul
centres around which fresh associations are continually
grouping themselves, and receive continually fresh
accessions of meaning as his thought moves onward.
This no doubt is what Luther means when he says that
St. Paul's words are like living creatures having hands
and feet ; that they draw around themselves fresh
connotations, and grow and adapt themselves to fresh
uses. So that we are never sure that we have grasped
the whole of his thought ; his words are like rays of
light, which contain many blended colours, and which
we must analyze by some intellectual prism, before they
will yield their full meaning to us. And even then, we
have further to reckon with the later associations which
modern use has drawn around them. Eighteousness,
faith, law, grace, justification — terms like these elude our
comprehension all the more easily, because we begin by
attaching to them our modern associations, and fancying
that to St. Paul they meant no more and no less than
they mean to the writer or the reader of an Eno-lish
book of devotion. How many theological misunder-
standings and confusions have arisen from these idols
of the market, 1 or — may we not say ? — of the Church !

1 " Idols of the market." Cf. Bacon, " Nov. Org.," i. H £ : « The
Idols of the Market are the most troublesome of all, those namely

Lect. I.] INTRODUCTION 3

How much of our modern religious terminology is but
the working up into a new building of stones shaped by
Apostolic hands for quite other purposes ! How often
does the chemistry of theologians precipitate into hard
and rigid forms the delicate spirituality of St. Paul's
thoughts ! How difficult Ave find it to divest ourselves
of prepossessions, and to find in St. Paul's language the
meaning, neither more nor less, which he intended to
convey to those to whom he wrote !

I propose to take for the subject of these lectures
one of those antitheses which, as we have seen, are so
characteristic of St. Paul, the Letter and the Spirit. I
shall endeavour, by a discussion of the passages in his
writings in which they occur, to bring out the full mean-
ing of the terms as he originally conceived of them.
This will lead us on to the further question of their
adoption into the theological vocabulary of early Chris-
tian writers, and so to that later and popular use by
which they have come to mean the outward and the
inward, the form and the substance, the transitory and
the permanent, the accidental and the essential, in
religion ; and then to endeavour to discriminate these
two elements in religious thought and life. Before
entering on this wider field, it will be necessary to
discuss w T ith some fulness the use of the words in
St. Paul's writings.

which have entwined themselves round the understanding from
the associations of words and names. For men imagine that their
reason governs words, whilst, in fact, words re-act upon the under-
standing."

4 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. I.

The earliest passage in which the words occur is that
in the third chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corin-
thians. He had been boasting that to him at least
letters of commendation were unnecessary ; he needed
no written documents to make good his claim to their
obedience. They themselves were his only letter of
commendation — a letter written, not with ink, but with
the Spirit of the Living God ; not in tables of stone, but
in tallies that are hearts of flesh. But it is in no spirit
of self-exaltation or self-sufficiency that he writes to
them. His sufficiency is from God, Who had made him
sufficient as a minister of a new Covenant — a minister
not of letter, but of spirit ; for the letter killeth, but the
spirit maketh alive. Here, then, he contrasts the old
covenant with the new in this respect — that the one is
letter, yp<x\nx,a ; the other is spirit, nvevfia. And we
shall not fully enter into the significance of this contrast
until we remember that to St. Paul the new Covenant of
which he was a minister was absolutely without written
documents. The conception of Christianity as intended
to be, like the later Judaism, the religion of a book
seems altogether foreign to his mind. The free spirit
is to him the direct antithesis of the fixed and unpro-
gressive letter. The SuLkovol ypd^fxaTo^ — ministers of
letter— whom he contrasts with Slcikovol vv€VfxaTo<;,
would be persons whose function it was to administer
a system of written rules, of punctilious observances, of
formulas and rubrics, and whose great object it would
be to produce conformity to a single outward type.
Such was the system under which St. Paul had himself

Lect. I.] INTRODUCTION 5

been trained ; as touching the law, a Pharisee ; as
touching the righteousness which is in the law, found
blameless. 1 He had been instructed according to the
strict manner of the law of the Fathers. 2 But Christ
had revealed Himself to him, and the things that were
gain to him, those he now counted loss for Christ. 3 Old
things had passed away ; all things had become new. 4
The Law, which was ordained to life, he had found to be
unto death. Sin, taking occasion by the command-
ment, had slain him. 5 And so St. Paul, in his vivid
way, always identifies the Law with sin and death, the
Gospel with righteousness and life. " I had not known
sin," he says, " but by the Law." 6 Evil, no doubt, was
in him and around him ; but not till the Law came, not
till the commandment awakened the consciousness of
sin, did sin take the definite form of opposition to the
Law. And that was all that the Law could do. The
Law was weak through the flesh. Its instruments, its
methods, were not spiritual, but carnal ; it needed a new
law — the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, 7 to
make him free from the old Law — the law of sin and
death. And therefore the letter, the Law written and
engraven on stones, killeth. It can only reveal to a
man his sin, his spiritual bankruptcy, without giving
him any new principle of life, without lifting him up
and setting him on his feet again. But St. Paul had
been made a minister of the Spirit ; of that new principle

1 nil. iii. 5, 6. 2 Acts xxii. 3. s Phil. iii. 7.

4 2 Cor. v. 17. 5 Eom. vii. 10, 11. 6 Kom. vii. 7.

7 Bora. viii. 2.

6 THE LETTER AND THE SFIRIT [Lect. I.

of life which Christ had come to bring into the world ;
of that quickening Spirit, the Spirit of the Living God,
Which is not a law but a Life, impalpable, all-pervading,
Whose very Name is taken from the wind which bloweth
whore it listeth, 1 the free breath of God, the Spirit of
Him that raised up Jesus from the dead. 2 And there-
fore, while as a Hebrew he speaks of the Law with
national pride, — while he claims for the Jews much
advantage, because to them had been committed the
oracles of God, 3 — while he acknowledges the Law, so far
as it was ancillary to the yet older covenant which was
confirmed before by God, 4 to be holy and just and good,
■ — yet when it becomes a rival to the Covenant of Grace,
when it is represented as the final expression of God's Will,
he regards it with something like hostility, as working
wrath, 5 as bringing death, 6 as the strength of sin.' And
when we remember what his experience had been, how
Christ had delivered him from the curse of the Law, 8 can
we wonder if he regarded the letter, the rigid, fixed,
hard, written Law, which he associated with the barren
discipline of his early life, as the very opposite principle
to the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus which had made him
free % Can we wonder if the letter and the spirit, when
he had once contrasted them, became to him symbols of
two principles of which the one was life and the other
death ?

1 John iii. 8. 2 Eom. viii. 11. s R om _ {\{ 2.

4 Gal. iii. 17. St. Augustine points out ("Contra Duas Ep.
Pelag.") that the New Testament is the older of the two.

6 Eom. iv. 15. 6 Eom. vii. 10. ' 1 Cor. xv 56

6 Gal. iii. 13.

Lect. I.] INTRODUCTION 7

It is, as I have said, characteristic of St. Paul, that
when he has once used an antithetical expression of this
kind, he recurs to it again and again, and uses it as a
nucleus to which fresh connotations attach themselves.
And therefore we shall not be surprised, if, in an Epistle
written not many months later, the Epistle to the
Romans, these words re-appear, with a somewhat amplified
reach of meaning. In the second chapter, where he is
showing how all, Jew and Gentile alike, had come short
of the righteousness of God, he declares that circumcision
without obedience is worthless ; and he asks, " If the
uncircumcision keep the ordinances of the Law, shall
not his uncircumcision be reckoned for circumcision ?
And shall not the uncircumcision which is by nature, if
it fulfil the Law, judge thee, who with the letter [Sta
ypa/a/AaTos] and circumcision art a transgressor of the
Law? " Here the letter and circumcision seem to stand for
the outward religion of form and observance as opposed
to the inward religion of obedience. "For," he adds, "he
is not a Jew, which is one outwardly ; neither is that
circumcision, which is outward in the flesh : but he is a
Jew, which is one inwardly ; and circumcision is that of
the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter." It is
remarkable that " the letter " here seems to be used as
almost exactly equivalent with "the flesh;" St. Paul con-
trasts circumcision in the flesh with circumcision in the
spirit and not in the letter : just as, in Phil. iii. 3, he
says, " We are the circumcision, who worship by the
Spirit of God, . . . and have no confidence in the flesh."
Again, in the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the

8 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. I.

Romans, speaking of Christians as being free from the
Law, just as a woman whose husband is dead is free
from the law of her husband and may lawfully be
married to another, he adds, varying the figure after his
usual manner, " Ye also were made dead to the Law
through the Body of Christ ; that ye should be joined to
another, even to Him Who was raised from the dead. . . .
For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which
were through the Law, wrought in our members to brino -
forth fruit unto death. But now we have been dis-
charged from the Law, having died to that wherein we
were holden ; so that we serve in newness of the Spirit "
— in the new life of which the Spirit is the animating and
inspiring principle, — " and not in oldness of the letter "
— not in the old state of bondage to the Law in which
we were held until, by dying to the Law, we were set
free from it.

In these two passages of the Epistle to the Eomans
we seem to recognize a distinct development of meaning
in the words from the first use of them in the Second
Epistle to the Corinthians. From the first idea of the
written Law as opposed to the free Spirit, they seem to
be taking on the further meaning of the form as opposed
to the essence, the outward as opposed to the inward,
the expression as opposed to the principle. " Circumcision

is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter : "

here the original sense of the Spirit, the Giver of life, and
of the written Law which killeth, is still present ; but we
see also that it is developing into something further, the
symbol of a yet wider antithesis. And to serve God in

Lect. I.] INTRODUCTION g

newness of the spirit and not in oldness of the letter
means more than being no longer under the Law ; it
means the being free from all that formalism, all that
rigid narrowness, of which the Law was the type, and the
rendering to God that reasonable service, that obedience
to the Living Spirit, which is perfect freedom. Indeed,
something of this kind must have been in St. Paul's mind
when he first used the words in 2 Cor. iii. : for after all
the various antithetical expressions which he there uses
■ — an epistle written with ink and an epistle written with
the Spirit of the Living God, an epistle on tables of stone
and an epistle on fleshy tables of the heart, the letter
which kills and the spirit which makes alive, the
ministration of death and the ministration of life, the
ministration of condemnation and the ministration of
righteousness, all turning more or less on the same
central idea, — he adds the contrast between that which
passeth away and that which remaineth. The letter,
then, he connects in thought with to Karapyov/jievov — the
transitory ; the spirit with to \xivov — the permanent.

To dwell at any length upon St. Paul's general use of
the word Trvev/xa would be somewhat beyond our present
scope. It may be enough to indicate that he uses it first
of the Spirit of God, also called the Spirit of Christ, or
the Holy Spirit, or simply the Spirit ; secondly, of the
spirit of man, the principle which feels, thinks, and
wills, in which sense he sometimes connects it with the
soul, *jjvx>], and the body ; and, thirdly, of a power or
influence, the character, manifestations, or results of
which are sometimes defined by qualifying genitives —

io THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. I.

as the spirit of meekness, the spirit of faith, the spirit
of life, the spirit of adoption, the spirit of power and
love and discipline, the spirit of wisdom and revelation.
It is also, as we have seen, contrasted with the letter and
with the flesh ; and it is sometimes used, with a qualify-
ing genitive or clause, in an evil sense — as the spirit
of the world, the spirit of bondage, the spirit of slumber,
the spirit that worketh in the sons of disobedience. In
the use of the word which we have now under considera-
tion the fundamental idea seems to be that of 'power ; so
that a covenant or dispensation of the spirit will be
a system characterized not by method, not by elaborate
rule and organization, but by a pervading element of
life, — a system in which the processes and functions are
mostly invisible, — a system of which our Lord's words
hold good, that " the wind bloweth [or the spirit — irvev/xa
■ — breatheth] where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound
thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh and whither
it goeth." Perhaps an undesigned testimony to this
contrast between the letter and the spirit, as systems
respectively of death and of life, may be found in the
popular usage which speaks not of the killing but of the
dead letter ; as though the letter which kills were itself
subject to death, and were incapable of producing
any effect without the operation of the life-giving
spirit.

And therefore when we speak of the letter and the
spirit as respectively the outward and the inward, the
form and the essence, the visible and tangible and
the invisible and impalpable part of a command or an

Lect. I] INTRODUCTION n

institution or an ordinance, we are not really making an
illegitimate use of the words of St. Paul, we are only
developing the latent principle enunciated by him in the
germ, using his terms to express the fuller thought
which has grown out of his pregnant expressions. Just
as the terms applied by early inquirers are not superseded
but developed into wider connotation by modern science,
so the words of St. Paul are not destroyed but fulfilled
when they are used to express the outgrowth and
development of his own principle.

It is remarkable that the Greek Fathers, to whom
one naturally looks for the interpretation of a Greek
phrase, seem to have quite missed the point' of St. Paul's
expression. Gregory of Nyssa 1 explains the words, " the
letter killeth," as meaning that the Old Testament con-
tains examples of evil deeds, instancing the cases of
David and Bathsheba, and of Hosea taking a wife of
whoredoms. Origen, 2 with whom the phrase is a familiar
one in connexion with his principle of allegorical inter-
pretation, refers it to the literal and the figurative sense
of Scripture, thus turning it to the disparagement of the
literal as against the mystical sense. Even Chrysostom 3
sees no more in it than a statement that the Law enacts

1 " Prooem. in Cantic," i., p. 470 : TlovrjpZv yap e^" TrpaypaxTuiv
Zv iavTw to. v:rooeiyp.a.Ta.

2 " Contra Celsum," lib. vi. : Tpa/x/jia tyjv alo-drjTrjv IkSo^tjv twv
6eiu>v ypap.p.aTO>v, ■Kve.vp.a. Se ttjv varyrrjv.

3 Horn. vi. in II. ad Cor., p. 581 : Tpdp,p.a Zvrav&a vojxov (farjo-l
tov KoA.a£ovTa tows irX-qp.jxeXovvTa'i. And so Theophylact, ad loc,
p. 348 : O vo/ios £a.v Aa/Jj; two. dfaapTavovra Kara to Sokovv ikd)(i.crTov,
u)S tov to. £vX.a iv (Ta/3/3a.T<a (rvWc^avTa, avupei.

i2 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. I.

death as a punishment of transgressors. On the other
hand, Augustine, 1 with that true exegetical instinct which
sets him so high above his contemporaries, at once con-
nects the phrase with St. Paul's words, "Sin, finding
occasion, through the commandment beguiled me, and
through it slew me." He points out that to teach men
how to live soberly, righteously, and godly is but the
letter which killeth, because where no law is there is no
transgression ; that the mere setting before men a high
morality actually places them in a worse position, unless
there be the life-giving Spirit to enable them to live a
new life. He contrasts 2 " the law of the Spirit of life

1 Aug., "De Spiritu et Littera," c. iv. : " Neque enini solo illo
modo intelligent! um est quod legimus, 'Littera oceidit, spiritus
autem vivificat ; ' ut aliquid figurate sciiptum, cujus est absurda
proprietas, non accipiamus sicut littera sonat, sed aliud quod sig-
nificat intuentes, interiorem honiinem spiritali intelligentia nutri-
amus ; quoniam ' sapere secundam camera mors est, sapere autem
secundum spiritum vita et pax.' . . . Non ergo solo illo modo
intelligendum est quod ait Apostolus, ' Litera oceidit, spiritus
autem vivificat ; ' sed etiam illo, eoque vel maxime, quo apertissime
alio loco dicit, ' Concupiscentiam nesoiebam, nisi lex diceret, Non
ooncupisces.' Et paulo post ait; ' Occasione acoepta peceatum per
mandatum fefellit me, et per illud oceidit. . . . Legis littera qua}
docet non esse peccandum, si Spiritus vivificans desit, oceidit :
sciri enim facit peceatum potius quam caveri, et ideo inagis augeri
quam minui, quia malas coneupiscentise etiam prasvaricatio legis
accedit." And " Contra Julianum," i. 94 : " In hoc est pra?desti-
natis adjutorium littera, quia jubendo et non juvando, admonet
infirmos confugere ad spiritum gratia?. Sie lege legitime utuntur,
quibus bona est, id est, utilis : alioquin per se ipsa littera oceidit;
quia jubendo bonum, et non largiendo caritatem, quas sola vult
bonum, reos prasvaricationis facit."

2 " Liber do Div. Quasst.," 66 : " Lex peccati dicitur, non quia lex
ipsa peceatum est, sed quia peccatoribus imponitur. Ideo etiam lex

Lect. I.] INTRODUCTION 13

in Christ Jesus " with " the Law of sin and death " — a
phrase which he curiously applies to the Law of Moses,
— and shows that the latter could at the utmost produce
an outward and servile obedience, whereas the former,
being written, not on tables of stone, but on fleshy tables
of the heart, working not from without but from within,
having for its motive not fear but love, is a principle
not of death but of life, and sets men free to serve God
in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.
I have thought it well thus to anticipate an objection
which might be made to the subject of these lectures.
It might be said that, in using the words " letter " and
" spirit " for the outward and inward, the accidental
and the essential elements of religious faith and life, we
are, in fact, availing ourselves of a popular misapplica-
tion of St. Paul's terminology, and sheltering ourselves
under his authority while using his words in a perverted
sense. Now, it is quite true that sometimes the words
of a well-known writer do thus become insensibly de-
flected into a sense quite alien from their proper
meaning. Shakespeare's " One touch of nature makes

mortis, quia stipendium peccati mors, aculeus mortis peccatum,
virtus autem peccati lex. Peccando enim ad mortem labimur. . . .
Lex ergo peccati et mortis, id est, quae imposita est peccantibus
atque morientibus, jubet tantum ne concupiscamus, et tamen con-
cupiscimus. Lex autem spiritus vitse, qua? pertinet ad gratiam,
et liberat a lege peccati et mortis, facit ut non concupiscamus,
et impleamus jussa legis, non jam servi legis per timorem, sed
amici per caritatem, et servi justitise unde ilia lex promulgata est."
But elsewhere Augustine takes another and a truer view (Serm.
clii.) : " Ilia vero lex peccati et mortis non est lex Dei." He
identifies it with the law of sin which is in the members.

14 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. I.

the whole world kin " 1 has become a kind of proverb, in
a sense absolutely foreign to the context ; but I maintain
that St. Paul's use, and especially his later use, of the
words " letter " and " spirit " does contain implicitly the
modern application of them, and that in this, as in
other instances, he has, in fact, enriched popular language
by the use of a valuable and pregnant phrase.

For we must not suppose that the distinction between
"letter" and " spirit" goes no deeper than the contrast
between Jewish law and Christian liberty. It is a
distinction which runs through all religion and all
philosophy, and which rests upon a fundamental principle
of human nature — the principle that man is a respon-
sible moral agent, whose highest perfection is not
obedience to an outward law, but fidelity to an inward
spirit. And from this it follows that what he requires
is not a code of rules to be followed implicitly, but
principles of action to be applied by an enlightened
conscience. It is true that in the childhood, as well of
the race as of the individual, there is need of the dis-
cipline of the letter — " touch not, taste not, handle not,"
is what children can understand ; but the only value of
such discipline is to produce first a habit of obedience,
and then gradually the deliberate moral choice of those
" who by reason of use have their senses exercised to
discern good and evil." If the dominion of the letter

1 "Troilus and Cressida," Act III., Sc. iii. Delius's note on
this much misunderstood passage is, " Es geht ein und derselbe
naturliohe Zug durch die ganze Welt, und bewirkt bei alien Men-
schen, als ob sie verwandt waren, derselben Hang," etc.

Lect. L] INTRODUCTION 15

is prolonged into mature life, it kills the freedqm, the
spontaneity, of action. A child may be coerced by a law;
a man must be led by the Spirit. The obedience of the
letter is valueless in God's sight, because it is mechanical
and external ; the life of the Spirit is moral, and works
from within outwards. It was this principle that
underlay our Lord's denunciations of the scribes and
Pharisees. They were hypocrites, because their outward
acts of religion were not the expression of their inner
life ; they walked, not after the Spirit, but after the
letter. It was this that He meant when He declared
that the 'first and great commandment was the love of
God and the second the love of our neighbour, and that
on these two commandments hung all the Law and the
Prophets. This, too, is what He meant when He told
His disciples that it was expedient for them that He
should go away, in order that the Comforter might come
to them ; that the time had come when His personal
presence and teaching would be a hindrance to their
spiritual growth ; that it was time for them to rise above
the mechanical obedience of children into the higher and
more intelligent life of men ; that they needed no longer
an outward, but an inward, guide ; that they must walk
by faith, not by sight. It was this that St. Paul meant
when he contrasted the righteousness of the Law with the
righteousness of faith, and when he declared that a man
is justified by faith, apart from the works of the Law. It
was this that, when the mediaeval Church had substituted
ritual observance and almsgiving for spiritual religion,
gave force to Luther's vehement denunciations of the

1 6 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. I.

Papal system, and to his assertion of justification by
faith as the articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesice — the
principle that righteousness, to be of any value, must be,
not external, but internal; the result, not of law and
discipline, but of the working of the Spirit of God.
Every true religious reform, whether within or without
the pale of the Christian Church, is in one form or
another a re-assertion of the spiritual element — a re-ad-
justment of the form or letter. Such were those
movements in the Church which foreshadowed the
Reformation — those of Arnold of Brescia, of the Albi-
genses, and of the Waldenses, in the twelfth century;
of the Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit and of the
Friends of God in the fourteenth ; of John Huss and
Jerome of Prague in the fifteenth. Such, too, in its
essence, was Buddhism, as a spiritual system, a revolt
against the literalisms and formalisms of Brahminism.
Such seems to have been the object of the dialectic of
Socrates — to detach the minds of his countrymen from
formulas, and to open their understandings to receive
the spirit of wisdom. And may we not say that the
celebrated advice of Dr. Johnson, " Clear your mind
from cant," was in effect an admonition to his hearers
to shake off the trammels of the letter and to be ready
to listen to the spirit of truth, even when its voice
sounded contrary to their own prepossessions ?

We recognize the same two elements in the Church
in all ages. Always we find in one form or another the
Jewish and the Gentile, the dogmatic and the rational
element, the tendency to submit to authority and the

Lect. I.] INTRODUCTION 1.7

tendency to assert the right of private judgment. One
man is never happy until he has an external law to lean
upon ; he must be able to refer his actions to some rule
outside himself; he wants an authority which shall
relieve him of the responsibility of deciding for himself.
Another looks, not to an outward law, but to an inward
spirit ; he acknowledges the duty of private judgment ;
he is not under the Law, but under grace. In morals
you have the man who trusts to system and the man
who trusts to inspiration. In art you have the man
who works by rule and the man who is a law to himself.
In politics you have the man who follows precedent and
the man who trusts to the insight of the moment. Each
character by itself is apt to develop into an extreme :
on the one hand, into a narrow dogmatism, boasting
of its superiority to reason ; on the other, into a self-
sufficient rationalism, proud of its independence of all
authority. And it is easier to be wholly in the one
extreme or wholly in the other, to sacrifice reason
altogether or to repudiate authority absolutely, than
to combine the two elements, to temper private judg-
ment with reverence and self-distrust, to blend meekness
with wisdom, and thus to make of twain one new
man. There are not wanting zealots on either side who
will assure you that compromise is impossible ; that
between Ultramontanism and Atheism there is no logical
standing-ground ; that you must accept everything or
reject everything. In the controversies of the last fifty
years instances of these extremes have not been wanting
in the University. Oxford has produced some of the

18 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. I.

foremost asseutors of Papal infallibility and some of the
most vigorous assailants of all definite belief. Perhaps,
when the history of religious thought in the nineteenth
century comes to be written, it will be found that the
best work of this place has been neither the assertion
nor the denial of authority, but the teaching men to
look at things as they are, the educating them in the
love of truth for its own sake, the impressing on them
that they are responsible, not only for what they do, but
also for what they believe.

It will be my object in these lectures to discriminate
between the letter and the spirit, between the form and
the essence, in Scripture exegesis, in the organization
and constitution of the Church, in the Sacraments, and
in Christian doctrines and ordinances. In doing so, I
shall endeavour to be mindful of the objects with which
these divinity lecture sermons were founded, prominent
among which was " to confirm and establish the Christian
faith," and to maintain "the Divine authority of the
Holy Scriptures." Hitherto, certainly neither the Chris-
tian faith nor the authority of the Scriptures has gained
by the persistent maintenance of the letter. Those who
frum time to time have undertaken the advocacy of the
Christian faith have too often made that faith to consist,
not in loyalty to the Divine Spirit whereby the whole
body of the Church in all ages is governed and sanctified
and enlightened, but in a blind adhesion to a formula,
an interpretation, a letter. The authority of Scripture
has been gravely imperilled when men have invoked it
to prove that it was impossible that human beings should

Lect. I.] INTRODUCTION

r 9

live at the antipodes, 1 that it was impious to believe
that the apparent motion of the sun was due to the
earth's rotation, that geology was a delusive science
because it taught that Creation was the work not of six
days but of untold ages, that witchcraft is a crime
which a Christian State is bound to recognize and to
punish with death, that resistance to even the most
arbitrary government is forbidden to Christian men, that
God for His own greater glory has sent some men into
the world foreordained to eternal damnation. 2 And, in
the same way, they are not the best defenders of the
Christian faith who refuse to recognize the work of the
Spirit, the Giver of life, in all the manifold varieties of
thought, of organization, of ritual, of character, of social
life, which are evolved in the course of ages, and who
desire to stereotype the Church's life according to the
pattern of the first, or of the fourth, or of the seventh,
or of the sixteenth century. God is a Spirit ; He cannot
be adequately expressed in terms of human language ;
He dwelleth not in temples made with hands ; no human

1 Augustine, " De Civ. Dei," xvi. c. 9 : " Quod vero et Antipo-
das esse fabulantur, id est, homines a contraria parte terras, ubi sol
oritur, quando oooidit nobis, ad versa pedibus nostris calcare vesti-
gia, nulla ratione credendum est. . . Quoniam nullo modo Soriptura
ista nientitur, quge narratis prseteritis facit fidem, eo quod ejus
praedicta complentur : nimisque absurdum est, ut dicatur aliquos
homines ex hac in illam partem, Ooeani iintnensitate trajecta navi-
gare ao pervenire potuisse, ut etiam illic ex uno illo prirno homine
genus institueretur humanum."

2 " Westminster Confession," oh. iii. : " By the decree of God,
for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predes-
tinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting
death."

20 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. I.

institutions, however venerable, can contain Him. In the
spiritual, as in the natural world, variety is characteristic
of His working ; of the one as of the other we may say,
" Lord, how manifold are Thy works ! in wisdom hast
Thou made them all."

I trust that to treat of this subject in a reverent
spirit and with a sense of responsibility may not be
unseasonable at the present time. For, to all appearance,
we have entered on a critical period in the history of
religious belief. Perhaps it is not so much that new
questions are being stirred, as that old questions are
assuming an acuter form, and are exciting a wider
interest, and are being discussed under new conditions.
It is sometimes said that religious questions have lost
their interest ; that men no longer care for them. That
can hardly be the case, if we may judge from the space
which they occupy in the literature of the day. Men do
care for them, but they will not accept conventional or
traditional solutions of them, they will not defer to mere
assertions of authority. At such a time, it is necessary
to distinguish very carefully between that which is per-
manent and essential and that which is temporary and
accidental in our religious systems : to endeavour (if I
may borrow the words of the Master of Balliol) " to
restore the Gospel to its simplicity ; to turn from the
letter to the spirit ; to withdraw from the number of
the essentials of Christianity points almost too subtle for
the naked eye."

The contrast between the letter and the spirit may,
perhaps, be not unfitly illustrated by the change which

Lect. L] INTRODUCTION 21

has taken place in this University in the last half
century. There are those here who can remember a
time when the Academical life of Oxford was compassed
about with statutes and formulas and promissory oaths ;
when every man at his matriculation was obliged to
subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles, and to swear to
observe the Laudian Statutes ; when, before admission
to the foundation of a College or to any statutable office,
it was necessary to swear to observe statutes, many of
them quite obsolete, with which the candidate was
prudently allowed no opportunity of making himself
acquainted : when much of the narrowness and exclu-
siveness of the mediaeval system lingered in the modern
life of the University. This generation has seen changes
such as had not been witnessed certainly since the
sixteenth century. Not only has the whole system of
obsolete statutes, of vexatious restrictions, of unnecessary
oaths been swept away ; but new elements, ecclesiastical,
social, intellectual, have been freely and ungrudgingly
admitted. And I believe that those who are best able
to judge will admit that the result has been gain and
not loss to the life of the University ; that, whereas the
letter, the system of antiquated restrictions and exclu-
sions, killed, the spirit, the wider, freer, more modern
system of liberty and comprehension has given life.
Only let it never be forgotten that the more external
restraint is removed, the more need there is of watchful
•self-restraint ; and that if the life of the University is
more free and more vigorous than of old, it is so much
the more necessary to take care that that life be guided

22 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT L Lect - l

and penetrated by the Spirit of Christ. For remember
that the influence of Oxford is no longer confined to
a narrow class of society. The life that flows from this
place penetrates year by year deeper and deeper into
the social system of England ; the streams that have
their source here affect for good or for evil an ever-
widening area. If plain living and high thinking are
the rule here, it cannot but affect for good the national
life ; but if luxury, extravagance, dilettanteism infect
Oxford, then, the eye being evil, there is danger lest the
whole body be full of darkness.

And you young men who hear me, suffer me to say
a word in conclusion specially to you. You are entering
upon life at a time when, if religion is to be a factor in
your lives at all, it will be necessary for you to make
choice between the religion of the letter and the religion
of the Spirit. For there is, I fear, in our day a tendency
to make religion more and more a matter of system, of
compact and definite organization. It is less difficult to
lie a zealous and enthusiastic Churchman or a zealous
and enthusiastic Nonconformist than to be a consistent
disciple of Christ ; and it is j>ossible to be full of the
spirit of Churchmanship or of Nonconformity or of
Catholicity or of Protestantism and yet not to have
much of the spirit of Christ. For whenever men act
together for a common purpose, there is a tendency to
lose sight of the end and to think chiefly of the means :
and in religious life especially, the visible and tangible
is apt to take the place of the invisible and spiritual,
and zeal for a Church or for an order or for a party will

Lect. I.] INTRODUCTION 23

sometimes, all unsuspected, become a substitute for zeal
for the Kingdom of God. But here, too, it is true
that- the letter killeth : if we suffer any outward thing,
any organization or form or system, to command our
allegiance and absorb our interest, if we forget that all
these things are but means to an end, and that, apart
from that end, they are in themselves valueless, we are
in the position which St. Paul describes as having begun
in the Spirit and being perfected in the flesh. The
Kingdom of God does not consist in anything outward,
not in Church government, not in Apostolical succession,
not in Catholic ritual, but in righteousness and peace
and joy in the Holy Spirit. " It is the Spirit that
quickeneth," says our Lord; "the flesh profiteth nothing :
the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and
they are life." Do not begin with outward things, with
Churchmanship or with party organization or with rules
of conduct. Begin with the first and great command-
ment, the love of God, and with the second which is
like unto it, the love of your neighbour : let these be
the supreme motives, the governing force of your life.
If you are looking forward to the Christian ministry as
your work, do not set before you as your first object the
promotion of Church principles or Evangelical principles,
but simply the service of God and of your fellow-men,
and all the rest will fall into its proper place. Or if you
are purposing to undertake some so-called secular voca-
tion and ministry, then remember that to promote the
well-being of your fellow-men, to cultivate a spirit of
brotherly kindness and helpfulness, to try to bring

24 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. I.

together on the ground of their common humanity-
classes which have learnt to misunderstand and to sus-
pect each other, is a higher and a nobler aim than to
serve a political party or to win a political triumph :
and that to live after the Spirit, to walk in the Spirit,
is the only way in which you can realize the Christian
ideal. Christ requires of you, not obedience to an out-
ward rule, not submission to an outward system, but
faithfulness to Him. " If ye continue in My word, then
are ye My disciples indeed ; and ye shall know the
truth, and the truth shall make you free."

LECTURE II.

IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS.

" Who also made us sufficient as ministers of a New Covenant ;
not of the letter, but of the spirit : for the letter killeth, but the
spirit giveth life."— 2 Cor. iii. 6 (E.V.).

I pointed out in my former lecture that, although the
terms " letter " and " Spirit " really cover a much wider
area of meaning, yet St. Paul, in his original use of them,
does practically identify the letter, yp6.^\x.a, the thing
written, with the Old Covenant, and the Spirit, the prin-
ciple of life and freedom, with the New. To St. Paul, in-
deed, as I have already remarked, the conception of the
New Covenant as contained in or dependent on written
documents does not seem to have been possible: his sense
of the shortness of the time, his expectation of the coming
of the Lord, would have made it unnatural for him to
contemplate any provision for stereotyping the living
Word. The epistle of Christ that he contemplated was
written, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the Living
God. The permanent record that he cared for was not in
tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. Indeed,
human language must of necessity act as a limitation to

26 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II.

the freedom of the incomprehensible, illimitable Spirit.
"Unspeakable words" — so St. Paul describes what he
heard when he was caught up to the third heaven. 1
" Groanings which cannot be uttered" — such are the
inarticulate pleadings of the Spirit making intercession
for us. 2 As there are " thoughts that lie too deep for
tears," so there are thoughts, yearnings, aspiratioDs after
God, glimpses of the Eternal, which no words can utter.
A man full of the Holy Spirit will strive to pour forth
to others the gift which God has committed to him to
profit withal : but when he would do this in words, he
finds that the more he is possessed with the Spirit the
more is he straitened, hampered, baffled by the limita-
tions of speech. He speaks with stammering lips ; his
utterances are broken, abrupt, inconsequent. And still
more in writing does the mechanical process tend to
check and impede the spiritual force ; so that it becomes
rough and irregular, like a mountain stream pouring
down over a rocky bed. And from this it follows that
inspiration — the possession of the spirit of man by the
Spirit of God — far from being a guarantee of the
adequacy and perfection of his written or spoken
utterances, tends rather the other way: it is the un-
inspired, shallow, conventional man that puts forth all
his mind in a clear, simple, popular style ; the prophet
finds the Spirit thwarted by the letter, and he cannot
fully utter the truth that is in him. And this we must
take into account in dealing with all sacred books.
They are sure to be below the level, so to speak, of what
1 2 Cor. xii. 4. 2 Eoni. viii. 26.

Lect. II.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 27

they record. They do but indicate to us the " depth of
the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God." They
do but reveal how much there is that cannot be revealed,
"how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past
tracing out." They cannot express fully the Mind of the
Spirit. This, too, is why parabolic teaching — the teach-
ing by symbolic act or figurative speech — is so often the
best resource of the highest teachers : because it only
professes to be like a picture shown to children, giving
the mere rudimentary outline of the doctrine, and leaving
it to grow and fructify in the mind of the hearer. And
if the hearer is not himself spiritual, he will not discern
the spirituality of the teaching. And this seems to
have been our Lord's meaning when He said, " Unto
you is given the mystery of the Kingdom of God : but
unto them that are without, all things are done in
parables : that seeing they may see, and not perceive ;
and hearing they may hear, and not understand."
Those who were without, those who were not spiritual
enough to understand the mysteries of the Kingdom of
Heaven, could not get beyond the letter, could not be
taught of the Spirit.

The Old Covenant, then, as contrasted with the New,
was a dispensation of the lettei\ But although this
was so, and although in the later ages of Jewish history
the reverence for the letter became idolatrous and stifled
the Spirit, yet that the Old Dispensation was in its
essence and inner purpose spiritual, that the Spirit of
God " spake by the Prophets," that the Christian Church
has been guided by a right instinct in adopting the Law

28 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II.

of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms into her
public services along with the writings of the New
Covenant, will be acknowledged by all who recognize
the continuity of the Divine revelation.

In discussing the letter and the Spirit in the writings
of the Old Testament, it is not necessary to say much as
to the Jewish view of these books, except so far as it has
coloured the Christian view. It has long been clear that
it is impossible to accept the old and simple theory, that
the Jewish acceptance of the Canon guarantees the
authorship and genuineness of the whole. It is impos-
sible to doubt that the historical books are made up of
elements of very varying age and authorship, which have
undergone redaction and arrangement at a comparatively
late period. The most recent theory, that of Well-
hausen, seems to indicate that the earliest legislation
consisted of a very elementary code contained in the
twenty-first, twenty-second, and twenty-third chapters
of Exodus, while the details of the Levitical system were
not fully developed, or at any rate not committed to
writing, till after the time of Ezekiel. We are as yet far
from having arrived at a definite settlement of the
questions connected with the Old Testament ; but should
this theory be received as the final result, it would only
give a still fuller sense to St. Paul's saying that the Law
was spiritual, and would make the Prophetical system
appear as a re-assertion of the simplicity of the earlier
Law.

Nor must we omit to take into account the fact,
that "the reverence which the Jews paid to the letter

Lect. II] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 29

of their sacred books as a whole in the time of our Lord,
was in a very great measure a growth of the period
which intervened between the closing of the Old
Testament and the opening of the New." 1 When the
Spirit no longer spake by the Prophets — when the word
of the Lord no longer came to the people fresh and living
and powerful, but only Iv ypa/Ajuari, in the written
documents which the Scribes guarded and interpreted, it
could hardly be but that the letter should take the
place of the Spirit, and that the word of God should
mean to them no longer the living oracles by which He
had manifested Himself to the hearts of His people, but
the dead writings which were all that remained of them.
So it must be always : when faith grows feeble, and the
Living Spirit no longer speaks to the hearts of men, they
must needs fall into the bondage of the letter ; they
must rest upon something outward and tangible — a law,
a writing, an institution, a formula ; when the Law of the
Lord is no longer in men's hearts, they bind it as
phylacteries on their foreheads.

But, as I have said, the question which we have to
consider is, not what was the relation of the Old Testa-
ment Scriptures to the Jews, but what is their relation to
us. And this question cannot be settled summarily by
a reference to the views of the early Church. For it
was natural for the first Christians to regard the Jewish
Church with special and even exaggerated reverence.
As I have already pointed out, the Church had no
Scriptures of its own ; the Apostles had been trained in
1 Myers, " Catholic Thoughts."

3° THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II.

the Jewish system ; from children they had known the'
Holy Scriptures of the Old Covenant ; and the traditions
of Christ would tell how He was in the habit of referring
to the Law as the standard of truth—" What is written in
the Law % how readest thou 1 "—and how, in the hour of
His temptation, and in His first struggle on the Cross,
the words of Deuteronomy and the Psalms gave expres-
sion to His obedience and filial trust. What, therefore,
could be more natural than that, in their meetings for
worship, Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms should
be used much as they were in the synagogue, and that
the Christian mind should delight to find Christ every-
where in types, and shadows, and mysteries, in the
writings of the Old Covenant ? Even when the destruc-
tion of the Temple shattered the organization of the
Jewish Church, still the Jewish Christians remained
faithful to their nationality. The Gentile converts were
indeed regarded as entering upon the heritage of Israel,
but the Jews were still the old noblesse; and the Gentile
came in somewhat as a parvenu. The Gentile entered
the Church stripped of all his past religious life : the
gods of Olympus were no gods ; or worse, they were
demons whom Christ had come to drive out : but the
Jew came in clothed in all the majesty of his past
history, the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants,
and the giving of the Law, and the service of God, and
the promises. And so it was inevitable that the tradi-
tions of the primitive Church should be Jewish ; that
the infant Church should be wrapped in Jewish swaddling
clothes. " To the Jew first, and also to the Gentile " was

Lect. II.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 31

St. Paul's own rule. But gradually the Gentile element

became stronger ; gradually, too, Apostolic writings,

addressed originally to particular Churches, passed from

city to city, and became the common property of all ;

gradually oral traditions, derived from those who from

the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the

Word, took shape in written documents, compiled by

men who had traced the course of all things accurately

from the first : and the Church, already inheriting from

the synagogue the traditional reverence for the Canon of

the Old Testament, transferred an equal share of that

reverence to the gradually accumulating writings of the

New Covenant, and the two literatures were fused into

one, 1 and the Law and the Prophets were read with the

Gospels and Epistles, and the Psalms of David were

sung in the assemblies along with Christian hymns, and

a new light was shed back upon the old writings, and

the mysteries of the faith were found embedded deep in

the books of the Old Testament. The two streams

flowed on for a time, like the Arve and the Pihone,

distinct in colour, the one turbid after its long course

from Mount Sinai, the other limpid and fresh from the

Galilean lake ; but little by little they mingled and

became one, and the Catholic Church flowed on, to

receive new elements, to water new lands, to make glad

the city of God.

It is necessary to remember the way in which the

Jews had come to regard their sacred books, in order to

1 Tertullian de Preescr., 36 : " (Eoolesia) legem et prophetas
cum evangeliois et apostoliois litteris misoet et itide potat fidem."

32 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT Lect. II.

understand the tradition which the Christian Church
inherited on the subject of Inspiration. Scarcely any-
thing is said of inspiration in the New Testament
beyond the well-known phrase in 2 Tim. iii., ypacjyfj
Oeo-rrvevcTTO's ; nor does it appear that any kind of formal
definition was attempted by early writers. The Christian
Scriptures fell naturally into the same rank with the
Jewish, and were described in the same terms. And so
it came about, that the Old and the New Testament
were regarded by the Church as of co-ordinate authority,
and the Old Testament was used as freely and un-
hesitatingly as the New in proof of Christian doctrine.
Origen, indeed, rests the proof of the inspiration of the
Old Testament on the authority of Christ, thus making
the Old subordinate to and dependent on the New ; but
generally the Jewish Scriptures were received without
question and without any particular theory as a part of
the Divine revelation, as part of the vineyard which had
been taken away from the original husbandmen and
given to the Christian Church.

It appears then, that, setting aside such passing
extravagances as those of Marcion and the early
Gnostics, the Old Testament was from the first adopted
into the Christian Canon, was indeed for a time the only
sacred literature of the Church, and was regarded after-
wards with the same reverence as the New. It would
seem that at the Eeformation there must have been a
tendency to reject or at any rate to depreciate the Old
Testament, for the original form of the seventh Article
of the Church of England ran thus : " The Old Testa-

Lect. II.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS

33

ment is not to be put away, as though it were contrary
to the New, but to be kept still." And the nineteenth
Article, as it stood in 1552, indicates a tendency to exalt
the spirit at the expense of the letter ; for it runs, " They
are not to be hearkened unto who affirm that Holy
Scripture is given only to the weak, and do boast them-
selves continually of the Spirit, of Whom (they say)
they have learned such things as they teach, although
the same be most evidently repugnant to the Holy
Scripture." But this tendency, if it existed, soon passed
away, and the effect of the Eeformation was undoubtedly
to enforce upon the Protestant Churches stricter views of
the inspiration of Scripture. When men's faith in an
infallible Church was shaken, it became necessary to
substitute some other foundation for the Catholic faith
to rest on, and the infallibility of Scripture took the
place of the infallibility of the Church. So that, until
of late years, the alternative was to accept the Bible as
a whole, as from beginning to end the direct utterance
of the Holy Spirit, as thus guaranteed against error and
imperfection of whatever kind, and as equally perfect
and equally valuable in all its parts ; or, on the other
hand, to reject it as a fiction, unworthy of the serious
attention of reasonable men. To us, the subject presents
itself under an entirely different aspect. For we have
learnt to lay aside preconceived theories, and to start
from the Bible as it stands, to compare it with the
sacred books of other religions, to study it in the light
of history, to inquire into its influence on human
character and progress, to recognize in it a human

D

34 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II.

literature, and to ask, Does or does not this nigh
morality, this deep insight into human nature, this
unique power of stirring the human heart, compel us to
ascribe to writings so immeasurably in advance of the
age and nation in which they appeared a more than
human origin ? We have learnt to distrust the theory
of a mechanical inspiration, such as, for example, that
which describes the Spirit breathing into the prophets
as a flute-player into a flute ; * and to regard the Divine
inspiration, not as something apart or isolated, a process
beginning and ending in the production of a book, but
as the pouring out of God's Spirit upon all flesh, as the
putting His laws into men's hearts and writing them
upon their minds. We have learnt that, as in the case
of Israel, so in the case of the Christian Church, the
living society existed before the written books ; and that
the books are the outcome and the record of the spiritual
life penetrating and permeating the society. And there-
fore upon us there seems to be laid the task of en-
deavouring gradually to discriminate between the essen-
tial and the accidental, between the temporary and
permanent elements in the sacred writings. And with
regard especially to the Old Testament, we have to face the
very grave question, What are the relations in which the
Hebrew Scriptures stand to the modern Christian Church ?
In the recently published " Life of Lord Shaftesbury,"
we are told that that excellent man was shocked by the
assertion that the Books of Chronicles and the Gospel of
St. Luke did not stand on the same ground of inspiration;

1 'Xicrei aiXrjTrj'i avkbv lfx.Ttvei<ra%. — Atheiiagoras.

Lect. II.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 35

and that he maintained that, "there is no security what-
ever except in standing upon the faith of our fathers,
and saying that the blessed old Book is ' God's word
written,' from the very first syllable to the very last,
and from the last back to the first." l That was a view
which was common enough formerly, but which few
probably even moderately educated persons hold now.
On the other hand, there are some who desire Christianity
without Judaism ; who think that the Church has out-
grown her early wrappings, and that the Old Testament
books have for us a purely historical or literary interest. 2
But it is impossible for the Christian faith to sever itself
from its antecedents ; the genealogies contained in two
of our Gospels, whatever may be the difficulties con-
nected with them, may at least stand for symbols of the
fact that Christ came of the Jewish race as concerning
the flesh ; and if there is such a thing as a science
of religion, it teaches us not the independence but the
continuity and solidarity of all religious systems.
Christ, in speaking to the Jews, seems to make the
belief of Moses' writings an antecedent condition to the
belief of His words ; and though we do not, like them,
accept Christ on the testimony of Moses, yet, in a wider
sense, the Law — not merely the Law of Moses, but the
whole system of discipline, of prohibition, of repression,
which that Law embodies — has its place in the work of
bringing us to Christ. But, at the same time, this age
is becoming more alive to the fact that there are in

1 " Lord Shaftesbury's Life," iii., p. 7.

2 E.g. Schleionnacher, " Glaubenslehre," ii., § 131.

36 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II.

Christianity other and perhaps not less important
elements than the Jewish. It was, as I have said, quite
natural for the early Church consecrare origines suas by
looking back to the glories of the Old Covenant, softened
as to its less attractive features by the haze of antiquity;
but, as time went on, other threads became interwoven
in the fabric of the Christian tradition, and fresh tints
were introduced ; the Gentile element tended more and
more to prevail over the Jewish, and the seamless robe,
not yet completed, contains in its texture the work of
maDy ages and of many lands. It is, indeed, quite true
that in one aspect Christianity is an outgrowth of
Judaism. But it is easy to assign too much importance
to the Judaic element in it. For though Christ was
called the Son of David, though He was descended from
Jewish ancestors and brought up amid Jewish surround-
ings, yet he was in a far truer and more characteristic
sense the Son of Man : there was in Him nothing dis-
tinctively Galilean, nothing essentially Jewish ; He was
not of one age nor of one nation, but of all. And the
Christian faith, though springing out of Jewish soil and
having its roots deeply entwined in the ancient Jewish
Scriptures, has drawn the elements of its growth not
only from its roots but also from the atmosphere into
which it has pushed its branches ; the grain of mustard
seed which Christ planted has grown into what it is
under the joint action of Oriental and Greek and Latin
and Teutonic influences.

It appears probable, therefore, that in the Christianity
of the future the position of the Old Testament will be

Lect. II.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 37

somewhat less prominent, less directly authoritative, than
it has been in the past. The oldness of the letter will
give place to the newness of the spirit. The Old Cove-
nant, indeed, can never lose its importance in any
complete system of theology. But there will be less
tendency to dwell upon minute points ; less attention
will be given to the letter of Messianic anticipations, and
more to the spirit of hope and yearning for a better
future which pervades the whole. To take an instance :
St. Peter, in asserting the impossibility of Christ's being
holden of death, applies to His Eesurrection the words of
Psa. xvi. : " I have set the Lord always before me ;
because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth : my
flesh also shall dwell in safety. For Thou wilt not leave
my soul to Sheol ; neither wilt Thou suffer Thine holy
one to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of
life: in Thy presence is fulness of joy." We cannot
doubt that the letter of this Psalm refers to the feelings,
the joys and sorrows, of the Psalmist himself, and
expresses his own confident expectation that God, Whom
he saw always before him, would not leave him finally
in the pit of trouble, but w T ould at length raise him up
and make him glad with the joy of His countenance.
But St. Peter adds his own comment, to the effect that
David both died and was buried, and therefore he could
not be speaking of himself ; but that, being a Prophet,
" and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him,
that of the fruit of his loins He would set one upon his
throne ; he foreseeing this spake of the Eesurrection of

38 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II.

the Christ, that neither was He left in Hades, nor did His
Flesh see corruption." But we need not, surely, hold that
David in any literal sense foresaw the Resurrection of the
Christ Who should come after him ; rather in the con-
fidence which he expresses is involved the everlasting
principle that God will never leave any of His faithful
servants to perish utterly ; that in His time He will
deliver them from the pit of corruption. And from this
it will follow, for those who believe in Christ, that for
Him above all it was impossible that He should be
holden of the pains of death ; that God was pledged by
His righteousness to deliver Him. And so, when we
use this Psalm on Easter morning or the fifty-third
chapter of Isaiah on Good Friday, we need not dwell
upon supposed literal anticipations of the Passion or
Resurrection, but we may think of Christ as the Son of
Man, gathering up into Himself all the sorrows and all
the hopes and all the longings of humanity, and ful-
filling them by giving them for all future ages a wider
and a nobler meaning than Psalmists and Prophets had
ever foreseen. If, indeed, we are to seek in the Old
Testament chiefly for literal and, so to say, mechanical
anticipations of future events, it loses most of its value
and interest for ordinary persons, and becomes a curious
study for ingenious interpreters : but if we will be con-
tent to see in it a record of God's Spirit working upon
the spirit of man, teaching him first the simplest and
most rudimentary lessons, then leading him up to higher
truth, and finally bidding him look forward to the
maturity of spiritual manhood, when the outward Law

Lect. II.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 39

should haVe done its work, and when God would put His
law in their inward parts, and write it on their hearts ; —
if we will be content so to regard the Old Testament, we
shall find that Moses in the Law and the Prophets did
write of Jesus of Nazareth, for that the things which
prophets and kings desired to see are manifested in Him,
and that the grace of Christ which was latent in the Old
Testament is revealed in the New. 1

The principle which is here asserted, of the inferiority
of the letter to the spirit, has one special aspect which
formed the subject of an entire course of Bampton
Lectures 2 more than sixty years ago, but which it is
impossible not to touch upon briefly, I mean the alle-
gorical interpretation of Scripture. " The letter killeth,
but the spirit giveth life," was a favourite text with
Origen, who is commonlv regarded as the father of
mystical interpretation. Not, indeed, that this sys-
tem of interpretation originated with Origen ; we must
go much further back to find its source. It must
be borne in mind that the Old Testament was to the
Jews the whole of their literature ; all that we find in
past history, in the thoughts of poets and philosophers

1 Aug., Queest. in Exod., ii. 73 : " Ad vetus Testamentum timor
potius pertinet, sicut ad novum dileotio : quamquam et in vetere
novum lateat, et in novo vetus pateat." And Serm. clx. : " Novum
Testamentum in veteri velabatur : vetus Testamentum in novo
revelatur." Augustine points out that we do wrong to the New
Testament if we place it in the same rank with the Old : " Sicut
veteri testamento, si esse ex Deo bono et summo negetur; ita et
novo fit injuria, si veteri asquetur."

2 Conybeare's Bampton Lectures on the " History of Allegorical
Interpretation," 1824.

40 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II.

of all ages and of all countries, they found in Moses and
the Prophets and the Psalms. And therefore it was
quite natural that their ideas should clothe themselves
in Old Testament language ; that they should see, in the
Old Testament, types where we might see only coinci-
dences ; that they should say, " All this was done that
it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet,"
where we should at the utmost give point to a narrative
by a passing allusion. For example, when St. Matthew,
writing to Jews and from a Jewish point of view, men-
tions that the Infant Messiah was taken into Egypt for
refuge during Herod's life, where we should have per-
haps alluded to the ancient connexion of Israel with
Egypt, he says that the sojourning in Egypt took place
in order " that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of
the Lord by the Prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have
I called My Son." l St. Paul, again, when he wishes to
connect the spiritual life of Israel in the past with the
Messiah Who was his life, refers to a Jewish legend
which related how in the wilderness a rock followed the
people in their wanderings and supplied them with
water, and adds, "That Eock was Christ." 2 When he
wishes to contrast the spiritual freedom of Christians
with the bondage of the Law, he thinks of the two sons
of Abraham, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a
free woman, and he says, " these things are an allegory ;
for these are the two Covenants." 3 And from these it was
an easy and a natural step to find beneath the surface
of the sacred writings inexhaustible mines of spiritual
1 Matt. ii. 15. 2 1 Cor. x. 4. s Gal. iv. 24.

Lect. II.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 41

truth which only needed to be explored by those who
had the skill and insight to search them out. St. Paul's
hint that the natural man could not receive the things
of the Spirit of God, 1 was taken to mean that, while the
letter of Scripture was apparently plain, it required a
special initiation to reach that which alone was valuable,
the spiritual or mystical sense. And this tendency to
spiritualize and allegorize, which we find thoroughly
established by the second century of the Christian era,
was greatly encouraged by the circumstances of the
time. The policy of Alexander the Great in settling a
large colony of Jews in his newly founded city of Alex-
andria had brought the Jewish mind for the first time
into contact with Greek philosophy and speculation.
The effect of this had been twofold. On the one hand,
a certain number of Jews had forsaken the traditions of
their fathers and had broken altogether with the Mosaic
law ; and, on the other hand, many, without abandoning
the religion of Israel, had become disciples and students
of the Platonic philosophy. But then it followed that
if the Greek philosophy was true and the Old Testa-
ment Scriptures contained all wisdom, the one must be
implicitly contained in the other ; and thus Philo, the
representative of Alexandrian Judaism, endeavoured
" to accommodate the Mosaic history to an incredulous
age, and to blend Judaism and Platonism into one har-
monious system." 2 The allegorical method of interpre-
tation was not indeed invented by Philo ; but it was by
him that it was elaborated and popularized, and it was
1 1 Cor. ii. 14. 2 Milman, "History of Christianity," i. 25.

42 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II.

mainly through his influence that it passed into the
Christian Church. In Origen, who was a disciple of
Clement of Alexandria, the system found its fullest
development. His fundamental principle is, " The letter
killeth, but the spirit giveth life." But in carrying out
this principle he virtually killed the letter by turning it
into a cryptograph, the literal meaning of which was
unimportant or even misleading. By disparaging the
literal and exalting the spiritual sense, he opened a door
to sublimating the whole of Scripture into a mystical
sense, intelligible only to the initiated, and so turning
it into a book of riddles, of which the key was in the
hands of the wise. To St. Augustine, and doubtless to
others like-minded with him, the allegorical interpre-
tation of the Old Testament was welcome as enabling
him to get over difficulties in the literal sense which had
troubled him when feeling his way towards a belief in
Christianity. 1 Indeed, St. Augustine, though his power-
ful common sense saved him from much of the extra-
vagance of some both earlier and later interpreters, and
thouoh he never evacuates the literal sense, vet at the
same time allows himself in the widest latitude of alle-
gorical interpretations, especially in his favourite subject
of mystical numbers. For example: 2 Moses, Elijah,
and our Lord each fasted forty days. This number he
expounds thus : Four is the number of time ; the day

1 Aug., " Conf.," vi. c. 4. : " Sfepe in popularibus sernionibus suis
dicentem Ambrosium laetus audiebam : ' Litera occidit, spiritus
autem vivificat ; ' cum ea, quae ad literam perversitatem docere
videbantur, remote mystico vetamento spiritaliter aperiret."

2 Aug., " De Doct. Christ," n. o. 1G.

Lect. II.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 43

and the year being each divided into four parts. Ten
signifies the Creator and the creature ; three being the
Trinity ; seven the creature, being made up of three,
the heart and soul and mind with which we are to love
God, and four, the elements of which the body is com-
posed. Thus the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospel
unite in bidding us to keep the mystic forty days by
fasting from the things of time and subjecting body and
soul to God Who made them. Again, 1 in the hundred
and fifty and three great fishes caught on the right side
of the ship in the second draught of fishes, Augustine
finds a great mystery. Ten is the number of the com-
mandments of the Law, seven of the gifts of the Spirit.
Thus seventeen signifies the Old and the New Dispen-
sation. But if we make an arithmetical progression
beginning with 1 and ending with 17, we arrive at 153,
which therefore signifies the great multitude which no
man can number, saved under the Law and the Gospel,
who shall be on the right side of the Judge. He has
also another and a far more elaborate and intricate
exposition of the same number, which it would be
tedious to set forth here. 2

1 Aug., "Enarr. in Psa. xlix."

2 Aug., "De Diversis Quees.," lvii., and in " Joh. Ev.," Tractat.
exxii. In the narrative in St. John vi., where the disciples are
related to have rowed five and twenty or thirty furlongs before
Jesus came to them, we find these numbers elaborately allegorized
thus : — 25 is the product of 5 X 5. He refers this to the 5
books of Moses, the 5 porches at Bethesda, the 5 loaves which fed
5000 men. From this he deduces that 25 = the Law. But the
Law was imperfect, therefore it is perfected in 6 : for God made
the world in 6 days. So 5 x 6 = 30, that the Law may be ful-
filled in the Gospel, and Jesus comes to those who fulfil the Law.

44 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II.

Probably the most familiar and the most complete
example of the allegorical interpretation of Scripture is
to be found in the "Magna Moralia" of St. Gregory. This
work consists in an elaborate exposition of the Book of
Job, in which the whole book is violently Christianized,
and the minutest detail is pressed into the service of the
Gospel. Thus the seven sons of Job signify the twelve
Apostles, for the product of four and three, which are
the parts of seven, is twelve. Elsewhere the seven sons
are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the three
daughters are the Christian graces of Faith, Hope, and
Charity. The oxen which were plowing and the asses
feeding beside them when the Sabaeans fell upon them
represent — the oxen, the more perfect Christians who do
the work ; the asses, the simpler brethren who feed in
green pastures. In the end of the book, Job had double
the number of sheep and camels and oxen and she asses
restored to him that he had possessed at first, but only
the same number of sons and daughters ; which signifies
that his original sons and daughters were living in
the unseen world, so that in fact he had double of all.
The camel signifies the Redeemer, because He stoops to
bear our burdens ; and hence the camel going through
the eye of the needle means Christ going through the
narrow gate of death.

I have touched upon these curiosities of Christian
literature, not only because they illustrate a strange and
formerly important aspect of my subject, but also because
the allegorical system of interpretation is not unheard of
in our day. It was strenuously vindicated in the last

Lect. II.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 45

but one of the " Tracts of the Times," by one whose name
can never be spoken in this place without honour and
reverence — John Keble, who was bold enough to select
for defence two of the most astonishing instances from
the so-called Epistle of Barnabas. The author of this
work wished to show how circumcision is to be spiri-
tually understood. " See," he says, " how Abraham, who
first gave circumcision, looked forward to Jesus. He
circumcised the men of his household, in number 318.
Of the two letters which in the Greek numerals stand
for 18, 10 is represented by I, and 8 by H. Here, thou
hast 'ItjctoGs. 300 is represented by T. And T is the
figure of the Cross. He therefore sets forth Jesus by
two letters and the Cross by one." It is obvious to
remark that this depends on the Greek numerals, and,
that in the Hebrew there is no such signification ; and
further, that 318 was the number of Abraham's house-
hold, not at the time of circumcision, but long before, in
the war with Chedorlaomer. This is explained by the
theory that the mystery of the number was wonderfully
revealed to" Abraham, and that his household was pro-
videntially kept to the same number. The same epistle
finds in the words of the first Psalm, " He shall be like a
tree planted by the streams of water," in the tree the
Cross, in the water Christian Baptism.

It is, perhaps, enough to remark, that such a system
of interpreting Scripture would require inspired inter-
preters. If the Bible means all this, plain men and
women cannot hope to understand it. A system which
makes Scripture mean anything is likely to end in

46 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II.

making it mean nothing:. Sermons constructed on this
principle — and such have been preached in the Church
of England in our day — could hardly touch any human
heart. When a man of learning and reputation finds
in the words, " I have determined to winter at Nico-
polis " our Lord's determination to leave the eternal
spring of heaven and to winter in this cold, bleak,
snowy world ; and in Nicopolis, the city of victory, an
indication of His victory over evil — " Notice the junction
of the two : the winter and the success : " — there is
nothing more to be said. 1

But we must not suffer the frivolities of interpreters
to turn us aside from the serious study of the Old
Testament. We may well acknowledge a typical
character in it, wherever there is any real analogy
discernible : as, for example, when Esau and Jacob are
used as illustrations of different types of character, or
when God's dealings with Israel are taken as indications

1 " Sermons preached in a Eeligious House," by Dr. John Mason
Neale; vol. i., serm. xv. An equally astonishing instance is to
be found in the same volume, serm. xiii., on the text 1 Sam.
xxiii. 20 — " Now therefore, O King, come down according to all
the desire of thy soul to come down." The literal sense of the
passage, which is a petition of the Ziphites to Saul to come down
that they may deliver David into his hand, is nowhere alluded to.
It is applied to Christ's coming down, first in His Incarnation,
" from the crown of celestial majesty to the Diadem of Thorns ;
from the seat on the Eight Hand of the Father to the Cross on the
right hand of the impenitent thief;" and, secondly, to His coming
down in the -Eucharist. " "What better, what dearer prayer, as we
first, in each celebration, kneel before the Altar, than this — 'Now
therefore, King, come down according to all the desire of Thy
Soul to come down ' ? "

Lect. II.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 47

of His method of dealing with nations. We need not
hesitate to apply to ourselves the utterances of Psalmists
and Prophets, so far as they turn, not on local or tempo-
rary accidents, but on eternal principles. We must
endeavour to study Scripture seriously, not as a book con-
taining a secret meaning accessible only to the initiated,
not as an oracle skilfully arranged to convey different
senses to different inquirers, but as a collection of writings,
the interpretation of which depends greatly on the cir-
cumstances and the age of their composition. Cardinal
Newman indeed, in the last work that he wrote in the
Church of England, says that "it may almost be laid
down as an historical fact, that the mystical interpreta-
tion and orthodoxy will stand or fall together." One is
encouraged to hope that the case may not be so bad, by
noticing the kind of instances that he quotes as specimens
of his rule — the mention of " waters " in the Apocalypse
in support of the mixture of water and wine in the
Eucharist ; " We went through fire and water, and
thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place," as an
argument for purgatory ; " My heart is inditing of a
good matter," or " has burst forth with a good Word,"
as a proof of our Lord's Divinity. One hopes, I say,
that orthodoxy does not depend on an exegesis of this
kind ; but in any case, oaiov irpoTifxav ttjv aXyjOelav — we
must prefer truth even to orthodoxy. To find a proof
of purgatory in a poetical reference to fire in a Hebrew
Psalm is ingenious indeed, but, to ordinary minds, not
convincing. Indeed, it would be possible, if it were not
profane, to construct on this method a system of Scrip-

48 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II.

tural proofs of the most heterodox doctrines. We cannot
doubt that Luther's manly common sense hit the mark
when he declared that the literal sense of Scripture alone
contains the whole essence of faith and of Christian
theology ; and that we must aim at obtaining " unum,
simplicem, et certum sensum literalem."

Here, too, lies the danger of what is commonly
called the devotional study of the Scriptures. Nothing
can be better, nothing more edifying, than to take what
we may call the more inward parts of Scripture, pre-
eminently the Psalms, and to make them the basis of
religious meditations, so long as those meditations do not
become morbid or fanciful ; but if we yield to the tempta-
tion to seek for edification everywhere alike, we shall be
likely to run into a feeble mysticism, and to turn Scrip-
ture into something quite different from what it really is.

And yet we cannot doubt that even the unintelligent,
even the superstitious, use of Scripture has been of vast
spiritual benefit to untold numbers of simple Christians.
Not only in the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testa-
ment, not only in the Psalms, but in the historical and
sapiential and prophetical literature of the Old Testament,
have pious souls sought and found the nourishment of
their spiritual life. How much of what is best in the
English character, how much of its sturdy persistency,
how much of its love of honesty and plain dealing, how-
much of its reverence for domestic purity, may be
traced to the familiarity of our forefathers with the
letter of the Old Testament ! How much do we owe
to that element of rugged Puritanism, which was built

Lect. II.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 49

up mainly from Hebrew materials ! And if we have
outgrown the narrowness of Puritanism, let us not
think that we have also outgrown the Old Testament.
The letter killeth — true : but as in the education of the
race so in that of the individual, we need the stern
assertion of a moral standard, even though it be an
imperfect, a rudimentary one, to make us dissatisfied
with ourselves, to force upon us the contrast between
what we are and what we ought to be, to be to us a
TraiSaywyo? els Xpto-roV, even though we may shrink and
struggle against being led to Him. In some sense we
still need that the letter should kill ; for not till we have
learnt to say with St. Paul, " wretched man that I am!
who shall deliver me from the body of this death 1 "
can we say with the same Apostle, " The law of the
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the
law of sin and death."

ADDITIONAL NOTE TO LECTUKE II.

It may perhaps be not uninstructive to see into what strange
conceptions of God's nature even good men have been led by-
dwelling too much upon the letter of Scripture. The following
passage is from " Occasional Sermons," by the Eev. C. Clayton, of
Cambridge, p. 80 : " ' They will rise to shame and everlasting con-
tempt.' In the midst of their cries for deliverance the righteous
Lord will ' laugh ' at their calamities. While in their fear they
will be calling on the mountains to fall upon them and the hills
to cover them, He will ' mock ' at their distress. Only think,
brethren, think of that ! The loving Saviour, who once shed His
Blood for their sins, ' laughing ' and ' mocking ' the impenitent at a
season when most of all they will need a friend ! "

This, however, is weak compared with the following, from the
sermons of John Cawood, of Bewdley, a preacher of some reputa-
tion in his day (vol. i., p. 239) : " The wicked in Hell will have

E

So THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. II.

bodies fitted to endure everlasting burnings; bodies exquisitely
sensible of the smallest pain, and immortally strong to endure the
greatest ; every part of their body will be most tender to feel, and
every feeling part will be filled with agony. For their bodies will
be 'vessels of wrath fitted for destruction;' vessels filled to the
brim with fire, and fitted to endure this fire for ever. . . . Nor will
sinners in Hell have one drop of water to cool their tongue, or to
quench their thirst ; streams of fiery brimstone will be their only
portion to drink. . . . Painful as it is, even in imagination, to
dwell on these inextinguishable fires, flashing, and raging, and
roaring above, beneath, and all around ; yet must we proceed in
this painful course, for the suffering of the lost is not half told.
. . . After the wicked have suffered for millions of millions of
millions of ages, there will still be an eternity of suffering to come.
• ■ . Who can tell the grains of dust in the globe of the earth ?
Who can count the drops of water in the sea ? Who can numher
the stars of light in the heaven? Add these grains of dust to
these drops of the ocean, and multiply the sum by the stars of
night, and the vast amount overwhelms the mind. But when the
wicked in hell shall have been tormented through millions of ages
equal to this mighty- amount, there will still be an eternity of
torment to come. eternity, eternity ! . . . Eternity is a circle,
whose centre is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere.
Every moment will the wicked suffer eternal pain, and suffer it
through eternity. Were an angel to write figures on the sky from
pole to pole, until the whole sky was blackened with figures ; yet
when the wicked shall have been tormented in hell as many years
as would in figures blacken the whole sky, still would there be an
eternity of torment to come." An attempt is made to express the
same idea by a different image, in a German treatise — Suso, Biieh-
lein von der Weisheit, c. xi., von immerwahrendem Weh der
Holle : " Wir begehrten (sagen die Verdammten) nichts anderes,
denn ware ein Miihlstein so breit als alles Erdreich, und urn sich
so gross, dass en den Himmel allenthalben beruhrte, und kame ein
kleines Voglein je uber hunderttausend Jahre und bisse ab dem
Stein so gross, als der zehnte Theil ist eines Hirskornleins, und
aber iiber hunderttausend Jahre so viel, als dass es in zehn-
hunderttausend Jahren so viel ab dem Stein klaubte, als gross ein
Hirskornlein ist : wir Armen begehrten nichts anderes, denn, so
des Steines ein Ende ware, dass auch dann unsere Marter ein Ende
hiitte ; und das mag nicht sein ! "

LECTUEE III.

nsr scripture exegesis (continued).

" The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." — 2 Cor. iii. 6.

In speaking of the letter and the spirit in connexion
with the Bible, we must try to divest ourselves of vague
traditional notions, and to look at the facts as they are.
And it is of the first importance to remember that the
books which we now call by a single name came into
being under the utmost variety of outward circum-
stances, widely separated from each other in age, in the
culture of their authors, in the religious conditions
which called them forth. Of the Old Testament books,
indeed, we know scarcely anything as to their origin
except what we can gather from internal indications :
the Prophets for the most part tell their own tale : the
Book of Job stands rugged and solitary, like an erratic
block that has found its way from some far-off mountain-
side into the midst of surroundings of a wholly different
age and character : the Psalms are a collection of gems,
representing various conditions of religious sentiment,
some sparkling with joy and gladness, some darkened
with sorrow and penitence, but all reflecting the ex-

52 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III.

perience of human life and the feelings of human
hearts : Ecclesiastes gives us the picture of a human
soul, " feeling its way through a night of darkness to
some measure at least of light and knowledge." 1
But in the case of the New Testament all this is
reversed. Whatever doubts may beset the authorship of
certain Gospels or Epistles, the general origin of the
Canon is quite clear. We see that it sprang up in a
quite informal way, and in answer to the requirements
of the infant Church. St. Paul hears of irregularities
which required repression in one Church ; of forgetful-
ness of his teaching in another ; or he feels impelled to
write to a Church that he had never seen, and to impart
to them some spiritual gift ; or he has to send back a
runaway slave to his master, and he writes a letter to
tell him of the new relation in which his slave stands to
him as a Christian brother; or a Christian of intelligence
and education, wishing to assure a young friend of the
certainty of the things in which he had been instructed,
writes a detailed statement of the result of his observa-
tions and inquiries. And the books which we possess
are but survivors, we may well believe the fittest, but
still only survivors, of others of which we know nothing.
St. Paul's earliest Epistle to the Corinthians, the many
declarations of the Gospel narrative which St. Luke says
were drawn up before he wrote — these and doubtless
other writings have perished. How entirely does this
informal — we might be tempted to say fortuitous, but
that we may be sure that God's never-failing providence

1 Cf. Bradley's " Lectures on Ecclesiastes."

Lect. III.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 53

ordered it — how entirely does this informal growth of
a sacred literature contrast with the orderly and sys-
tematic elaboration of a religious formula, such as we
should frame if it were our purpose to found a Church
or an order ! Indeed, one is apt to suspect that the
popular notion of the Bible as a single and systematic
handbook of religion has sprung up very much from
men's preconceived notions of what such a book ought
to be, rather than from any thoughtful consideration of
what it actually is. Compare the Bible, for instance,
with the Koran. In one sense, no doubt, the Koran is
the more unsystematic of the two, for its component
parts have been hopelessly dislocated, so that it is
inconsecutive in the highest degree. But still there is
no variety, no light and shade, as in the Bible : it is the
work of a single author ; uniform and without relief,
like an Arabian desert. The characteristic feature of
the Bible is its perfectly human tone, so that it seems
incredible that it should have been forced and strained
into a mere handbook of religion. And this suggests a
further thought about the Bible — that it is not so much
an inspired book as the writing of inspired men. It
would not be within the scope of this lecture to enter
upon a discussion of the nature and limits of inspiration :
but as our subject is the letter and the spirit, it is not
out of place to point out that the letter of the Bible is
the result of the working of the Holy Spirit of God,
not superseding the human consciousness, not destroying
the writer's individuality, but elevating and pervading
it, so that a man, being full of the Holy Spirit which is

54 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III.

given him to profit withal, gives forth that which he
has received, ministers the gift to others, as a good
steward of the manifold grace of God.

Probably the view of the primitive Church on the
subject of inspiration may be summed up in St. Paul's
words, " To one is given through the Spirit the words
of wisdom ; and to another the word of knowledge,
according to the same Spirit : to another faith, in the
same Spirit ; and to another gifts of healings, in the
one Spirit ; and to another workings of miracles ; and
to another prophecy : . . . but all these worketh the
one and the same Spirit, dividing to each one severally
even as He will." 1 There is no trace of a belief in any
separate and independent form of inspiration for the
writing of sacred books : the wisdom and the Spirit
with which the Apostles spake would be the same
wisdom and the same Spirit with which they wrote.

If indeed there exists an opposition between the
spirit and the letter ; if, as I tried to show in my last
lecture, the mere fact of reducing to writing the utter-
ances of the free Spirit must tend to confine and hamper
them ; then inspiration in the highest sense, far from
being limited to written documents, would rather be
independent of them. The letter is the record of the
mind of men who were, as we believe, filled with the
Spirit ; and we need not doubt that God's providence
watched over the record, and that He, without Whom
not a sparrow falls to the ground, cared for the future
of His Church ; but the letter cannot take the place of
1 1 Cor. xii. 8-11 (E.V t ).

Lect. III.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 55

the Living and Life-giving Spirit. The tendency of the
exaltation of the Bible into the position of Glod's final
utterance to His Church has been to weaken the belief
in the constant presence of the Divine Spirit, in the
unceasing inspiration by which He is still leading men
into all the truth. If we think that when the Canon of
the New Testament was closed, God's voice ceased to be
heard, the Scripture itself will be to us no longer an
utterance of the Living Word but a dead idol ; it will
lead men to fall back upon the life of the first century
instead of believing that Grod has never ceased to mani-
fest Himself in an ever-widening revelation through all
the varied life and thought and knowledge of the suc-
ceeding ages.

It seems clear that we should approach Scripture in
a manner corresponding with its genesis. If it had
been a formal treatise, supernaturally drawn up to serve
as a text-book of religion, it would be reasonable that
we should use it as a text-book, accepting it in the
letter as scientifically accurate, making no distinction
between its parts, appealing to a single sentence as
decisive of a theological controversy. But it is not a
formal treatise, but a sacred literature ; and so it is not
by quoting texts but by saturating our minds with its
spirit that we can really use it aright. And if this
principle is once recognized, it must necessarily greatly
modify our theological methods. We can hardly find a
better example of the literal method than Bishop Pear-
son's book on the Creed. In this well-known work,
which has been regarded almost as one of the authori-

56 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III.

tative standards of the Church of England, which was
till lately a text-book for candidates for Holy Orders
probably in every diocese in England, and which has
been held in high esteem and frequently referred to
among Nonconformists, we find the several articles of
the Creed first discussed as to their meaning, and then
proved by an array of texts, quoted from the Old and
New Testament, from poetical and prose writings indis-
criminately, and with little reference to the context,
very much in the same way as propositions of Euclid
might be quoted to establish the articles of a geome-
trical creed. It would be presumptuous to disparage
the learning or the utility of so great and approved a
work ; but we can hardly doubt that with the decline
of literalism its authority must diminish, and that the
apologetic literature of the future must be on a some-
what different plan.

Another exegetical labour the value of which is
likely to be less highly rated as the more spiritual view
of Scripture prevails is that of harmonizing the Gospel
narratives. As long as it was held that the Gospels
must be construed like a legal document, it was of the
highest importance to show that, notwithstanding any
apparent discrepancies, the four Evangelical narratives
were in absolute and unbroken accord and harmony
with each other. And this was accomplished by taking
the books to pieces, and fitting the fragments into one
another like a child's puzzle, so as to produce a fifth
narrative, a compound of the original four, out of which
all the life and naturalness had been crushed by vio-

Lect. III.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 57

lence. Far be it from me to say that it is not possible
to construct a consistent narrative of the life of Christ
from a rational comparison of the four Gospels on his-
torical principles ; but to force them into a mechanical
agreement by an arbitrary process of re-adjustment is
in fact to destroy both the letter and the spirit. Some
questions, such as the chronology of the Crucifixion in
relation to the Passover, must probably remain always
unsettled ; in some points, it must be admitted that
different Evangelists have followed different versions of
the current Christian tradition : the inscription on the
Cross can be harmonized only by the hypothesis that
not one of the Evangelists has recorded it in its fulness.
But would our faith in Christ stand more firm if the
documents from which we derive our knowledge of His
life and teaching fitted into each other with mechanical
accuracy, so that no question could by possibility arise
as to whether on a particular occasion He healed one
or two blind men, or whether it was as He went into
or as He came out of the city ? x If so, must we not
confess that we are thinking more of the letter than of
the spirit, more of the dead record than of the living
power of His gracious words and works ?

Indeed, we are sometimes inclined to put forward
for the Scriptures claims far higher and more exacting
than they make for themselves. If, for example, we

1 Matt. xx. 30 ; Mark x. 46 ; Luke xviii. 35 : of. Eenan, " Les
Evangiles," p. 179. Harmonists have sought to escape the diffi-
culty by the hypothesis that Christ healed one blind man as he
entered the city (so Luke), another as He quitted it (so Mark),
and that St. Matthew combined the two events.

58 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III.

look at the use which is made of the Old Testament by
the writers of the New, we shall notice some remarkable
and instructive phenomena. We have seen that both
our Lord and the writers of the New Testament accorded
to the writings of the Old Testament the same authority
and reverence that were generally conceded to them by
the Jews of that time ; and from this point of view it
is important to observe their method of quoting and
referring to them. Our Lord Himself does not appear
to have referred to the Old Testament prophecies with
regard to their fulfilment in detail, but simply as con-
firming His own Messianic claims or as furnishing a
standard of morality with which to compare His own
teaching. But the Evangelists and St. Paul and the
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews make a far wider
use of the writings of the Old Covenant. And with
regard to these quotations two points seem specially
noticeable. In the first place, in the great majority of
cases they are made not from the original Hebrew but
from the Septuagint translation ; where the one differs
from the other they usually follow the translation ; and
in some cases they quote words from the Septuagint to
which there is nothing corresponding in the existing
Hebrew text. By some writers this difficulty has been
so strongly felt that they have maintained that the New
Testament use of the Septuagint confers on it a dignity
which it would otherwise have lacked, and raises it, at
least so far as regards the passages quoted, to the same
level of inspired authority with the Hebrew original.
Few, probably, would be found to adopt this theory

Lect. III.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS

59

now ; the more reasonable conclusion is this, that the
writers of the New Testament did not regard the Hebrew
text as possessing any special or exclusive sanctity, but
were content to use a version which was sufficient for
literary purposes, but which modern theologians would
certainly not regard as affording an adequate basis for
argument. But beyond this, there is a yet more striking
phenomenon to be noticed. The New Testament writers,
and in particular St. Paul, quote the words of the Old
Testament in a sense quite independent of the original
connexion, so that it has even been said of the quotations
in St. Paul's Epistles, that " in no passage is there any
certain evidence that the first connexion was present to
the Apostle's mind." 1 For example, in 1 Cor. xiv.
St. Paul is speaking of the remarkable manifestation
which had appeared in the Church of Corinth, the
speaking with a tongue, by which persons under strong
spiritual excitement uttered in the congregation sounds
which, whether or not they were words of a foreign
language, were at any rate unintelligible to the hearers ;
and he quotes and applies to this phenomenon the words
of Isaiah, which in the revised version read, " By men of
strange lips [or, in the margin, " with stammering lips "_,
and with another tongue will He speak unto this people ;
to whom He said, This is the rest, give ye rest to him
that is weary : and this is the refreshing ; yet they
would not hear." It is incontestable that the Prophet in
this passage threatens the people that, as they despised
and derided his teaching as being childishly simple — -
1 Jowett, " Epistles to Thessalonians, etc.," i. p. 357.

60 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III.

" It is precept upon precept, precept upon precept ; line
upon line, line upon line ; here a little, there a little " —
God will adopt a different method with them, and will
speak to them in quite another language, bringing upon
them the Assyrians, men of strange lips : and he adds
that, though God had offered them rest and refreshing,
yet they would not hear. This passage, of which the
general meaning in the original is undoubted, St. Paul
adapts to his own purpose, and applies to the Corin-
thians speaking with a tongue ; and the concluding
words, " Yet they would not hear," which in Isaiah refer
to God's offer of rest, St. Paul, by omitting a clause, con-
nects with the tongues. " In the Law it is written, By-
men of strange tongues and by the lips of strangers will
I speak unto this people ; and not even thus will they
hear me, saith the Lord. Wherefore tongues are for a
sign, not to them that believe, but to the unbelieving."
Here the connexion is evidently purely verbal : there
is no kind of spiritual analogy between the threatened
invasion of Judah by men of foreign tongue and the
utterance in the Corinthian Church of speech unin-
telligible to the people. Are we to suppose that the
Prophet Isaiah, when threatening the Jewish people
with punishment for the contempt of the Divine message,
was supernaturally guided to use words which should be
applicable in a quite different sense to a quite different
set of circumstances ? Surely not. But then the only
alternative to this hypothesis is that St Paul made what
we may call a purely literary use of the Old Testament,
not scrupling to avail himself of it without any reference

Lect. III.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 61

to its original meaning. Or take St. Paul's quotation
from Genesis ' in Eom. iv. : " Abraham believed God, and
it was reckoned to him [or, as it is in the original,
" He counted it to him "] for righteousness." St. Paul's
argument is, that Abraham was justified before God, not
by works, but by faith ; and he refers to the passage in
which God promises him an heir, and descendants as
many as the stars ; " and he believed in the Lord ; and
He counted it to him for righteousness." Here the con-
nexion is much more than verbal ; but, at the same time,
it does not appear that the original necessarily means
more than this — that Abraham believed God's promise,
and God was pleased with him-. But this statement St.
Paul enlarges, and adopts as the basis of a theological
argument that Abraham was justified by faith, and,
further, that as he had not yet received circumcision
when righteousness was thus reckoned to him, he was
the father of them that believe, though they be not
circumcised. Or once more, in the veil which Moses
put over his face to mitigate the brightness with which
it shone when he came down from the mount, St. Paul
sees the veil which is upon the heart of Israel, and
which hinders them from seeing the glory of Christ
when Moses is read. 2 Tn all these, and in many other
instances which might be referred to, St. Paul uses the
utmost freedom in his treatment of the Old Testament.
It is true that this freedom is quite in accordance with
the use of writers of his age, to whom the meaning
of an ancient text was somewhat indeterminate, and
1 Gen. xv. 6. 2 2 Cor. iii. 13.

62 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III.

capable of being modified according to tbe reader's
point of view ; but none the less it is difficult to
reconcile with any modern system of Scripture exegesis,
and it points to the conclusion that St. Paul regarded
the Old Testament not as a living organism, but as an
ancient geological formation, out of which he was at
liberty to cut the fragments which suited him, and to
arrange them in a fresh setting, in which new colours
were reflected from them by the light of the Gospel of
the glory of Christ.

And in this lies the defence of what to us may seem
fanciful and illogical in St. Paul's method. He took little
account of the literal sense, the letter of the Old Testa-
ment,because to him the books spoke only of Christ and
His Church. To him Christ was all, and in all; the
details were of small importance. And though to us,
with our more severely logical methods, it is impossible
thus to ignore the letter, yet in interpreting St. Paul
himself we may at least bear in mind that with his
eager impetuous nature we ought not to look for care-
fully balanced and elaborated statements of doctrine :
that his whole mind was possessed with the central idea
of Christ, and that to this all else was subordinate ; and
that therefore his object is rather to set forth the glory
of God in Christ Jesus than to explain difficulties or to
define mysteries. We may perhaps find an illustration
of this in his treatment of the doctrine of predestination
in the Epistle to the Konians (ix.-xi.). In writing of
the love of God in Christ Jesus, the thought suddenly
flashed upon him, ' But what of those, God's elder

Lect. III.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 63

people, my kinsmen after the flesh ? How can I thus
exalt the glories of the New Covenant without being
disloyal to my own nation ? ' In feeling after an escape
from this difficulty, he thinks first of the origin of the
Hebrew nation, how from the beginning there had been
a process of selection — how Isaac had been chosen and
not Ishmael, how Jacob the younger had been chosen
instead of Esau the elder son ; and from this he infers
that we are not to question the righteousness of God's
choice, "that it is not of him that willeth, nor of
him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy." And
in the end he comes round to the great conclusion that
God's mercy is over all His works ; that He has con-
cluded all, Jews and Gentiles alike, in unbelief, that He
may have mercy upon all. But on his way to this con-
clusion he has given utterance to expressions which, if
regarded not as obiter dicta but as fundamental prin-
ciples, may easily be made the basis of a system fatal
to all effective belief in God's love and righteousness —
" He hath mercy on whom He will, and whom He will
He hardeneth." " What if God, willing to shew His
wrath, and to make His power known, endured with
much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruc-
tion ? " These and like phrases, taken by themselves
and exalted into theological dogmas, have agitated the
Christian Church for centuries with barren controversies,
and filled men's minds with dark thoughts of God.
How large a space this subject filled in the mind of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is indicated by the
fact that the longest and most laboured of the Thirty-

64 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III.

nine Articles is that on Predestination and Election, and
that in an exposition of the Apostles' Creed published in
1603, and held in high repute at that time, the Article
of the Holy Catholic Church resolves itself into a very
full and and minute discussion of predestination and
reprobation. 1 The controversy has yielded to the
onward movement of Christian thought, and to a
worthier view of God's eternal purpose in Christ Jesus ;
and men have come to see that in St. Paul's words, read
not after the letter but after the spirit, there lies no
such doctrine of terror as was found in them by the
stern theology of Augustine and of Calvin, but rather
an assertion of the power and of the righteousness and
of the love of God.

In this case it is most true that " the letter killeth."
The terrible doctrine that, " By the decree of God, for
the manifestation of His glory, some men are pre-
destinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained
to everlasting death," 2 has done more than anything
else to distort men's idea of the Fatherly love of God,
and to kill that "joy in the Holy Spirit" which is so
essential an element in the Kingdom of God : and yet
even here we may acknowledge that the dispensation of
the letter had its place in the economy of God's provi-
dence. There are times, and both the fourth and the
sixteenth centuries were such times, when the minds
of men need to be braced by the assertion of God's

1 Perkins, " A Golden Chaine : containing the Order of the
Causes of Salvation and Damnation."

2 " Westminster Confession."

Lect. III.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 65

sovereignty, when force can be secured only by some-
what of narrowness and compression : and such a cha-
racter as that of Cromwell in history, or of David Deans
in fiction,' — hard, stern, inflexible, intolerant of all un-
righteousness, — though not the highest type of human
goodness, is yet, like the Law itself, a needful preparation
for the righteousness of Christ. Yet here, also, " the
Spirit giveth life." The belief in God's absolute
sovereignty, when combined with a belief in His perfect
righteousness and love, has the same kind of effect upon
the moral character that an entire confidence in their
commander has upon soldiers. It gives steadfastness of
purpose, contempt of obstacles, clearness of moral judg-
ment, persistency of effort, indomitable and enthusiastic
hope. Perhaps some more spiritual form of a belief in
predestination may prove to be the moral tonic for lack
of which there is now so much half-heartedness, so much
coldness of faith.

In this, as in many other points, the teaching of
St. Paul has suffered through being looked at in the
light of later controversy. His phrases have become
watchwords of religious factions, and we need to go
back to his own clay and to listen to his Epistles as they
were first read fresh from the Apostle's heart in the little
gatherings of the faithful at Corinth or Rome, and to
forget all the later accretions of theological association
which have gathered round them. What, for example,
did St. Paul mean by justification by faith apart from
the deeds of the Law ? Why was the revival, the re-
discovery of this doctrine in the sixteenth century able

66 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III.

to shake the Papal power through half Europe, and why
does it now sound archaic, technical, unreal ? Is it not
because we associate the words with burnt-out contro-
versies, and forget to ask whether they do not contain
a principle which is as fresh and living for us as for the
first or the sixteenth century ? If St. Paul was writing
merely against Jewish observances in his own day, or, by
anticipation, against the formal penances or the pilgrim-
ages or the indulgences of the mediaeval Church, then,
indeed, the words have little meaning for us ; but, if
he meant by justification by faith, that man looks on the
outward appearance, but God looks on the heart ; if he
meant that God appraises the moral value of men's acts
by the inner spring and motive, and that He judges
men, not by what they profess, nor by what they seem,
but by what they are, then surely " that we are justified
by faith only is a most wholesome doctrine and very
full of comfort," and may still be regarded as the test of
a standing' or a falling Church.

There is another doctrine of the New Testament in
which the distinction between the letter and the spirit
is very marked and very important, — I mean the doc-
trine of the second coming of Christ. In the great
discourse spoken by our Lord on the Mount of Olives
over against the Temple, which is recorded in various
proportions by the three synoptic Evangelists, while it
is clear that the foreground sets before us the approach-
ing destruction of the holy city, there also looms in the
background the faint foreshadowing of another event,
the coming of the Son of Man. How far our Lord

Lect. III.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 67

meant by that simply the final dissolution of the Jewish
polity and the dispersion of the nation — and that He
had this in His mind we may infer from His words,
" This generation shall not pass away till all things be
accomplished," — and how far He meant also to point to
a great final coming —

" To that far-off Divine event
To which the whole creation moves,"

is a question which need not be discussed now. Clearly
His words to Pilate, " Henceforth ye shall see the Son
of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming
in the clouds of heaven," point not to a far-off and
momentary vision, but to the sight and acknowledg-
ment of His power in the foundation of His kingdom.
But however this may be, we cannot fail to see that
there was in the Church from the beginning an expec-
tation that the generation then living would see with
their bodily eyes Christ coming in the clouds, and would
hear with their bodily ears the voice of the Archangel
and the trumpet of God. It was, indeed, a very natural
belief; for to them the spiritual world was the only
reality, the things which were not seen were alone
eternal, the things which were seen must soon pass
away. And though the experience of eighteen centuries
has taught us that in this the first Christians were mis-
led by the very vividness of their faith, yet there still
clino-s to the belief of the Church something of the gross
and material element in respect of the coming of Christ.
But if in respect of the When the Church has been led

68 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III.

to modify its expectation, is it not reasonable also to
suppose that in regard to the How a like modification
must take place ? Not to dwell upon the argument that
the change in our conception of the earth and the
heavens must involve a corresponding modification of
all physical and local ideas and relations, we may surely
accept the majestic simplicity of the words of the Te
Deum, " We believe that Thou shalt come to be our
Judge," without encumbering our belief with any lite-
ralisms such as the artists of the Middle Ages delighted
to portray. It is, indeed, worth noticing to how great
an extent Christian eschatology has been moulded by
the outward circumstances and by the culture and in-
telligence of the age. In days of oppression and per-
secution men have drawn comfort and hope from the
thought that Christ's coming could not be long delayed,
and have cried, " Lord Jesus, come quickly," and have
looked eagerly for the sign of the Son of Man in heaven.
In days when theology was systematized and the king-
dom of Heaven assumed the form of a feudal monarchy, 1
men imagined a magnified and glorified court of justice,
in which apostles, martyrs, confessors, monks, and
virgins should sit as assessors or more than assessors
with the Judge, and should take part in the judgment

1 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, "Elucid.," c. 70: " Qualiter veniet
Dominus ad judicium? Sicut Imperator ingressurus civitatem,
corona ejus et alia insignia prasferuntur, per qua? adventus ejus
cognoscitur ; ita Christus in ea forma, qua ascendit, cum Ordi-
nibus omnibus Angelorum ad judicium veniens. Angeli crucem
ejus ferentes prseibunt, mortuos tuba et voce in occursum ejus
excitabunt." Cf. also Milman, " Latin Christianity," vi., p. 227, sqq.

Lect. III.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 69

of the nations who should be gathered at the judgment
seat. In days of rude literalism, the terrors of judg-
ment were enhanced by the resources of sculpture and
painting, and hideous demons fanned the fire and fed
the furnace for the fiercer torturing of lost souls. It
may be that in our days of laxity of moral fibre, when
good does not appear so indisputably good, nor evil so
absolutely evil, there is a tendency to put aside the
thought of judgment to come, and to regard all looking
forward as unprofitable speculation, and to concentrate
all our thoughts upon this present world. We do not
know, indeed, and it would not be useful to inquire,
how much of the words of St. Paul and of our Lord on
this subject is parabolic and how much literal ; it is
enough to believe that there will be a revelation of the
righteous judgment of God, who will render to every
man according to his deeds.

"The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." We
cannot, indeed, doubt that even as the blind veneration
of the Church was an instrument in God's hands for
training men to something better and purer, so the
blind veneration of the Bible, which has prevailed since
the Reformation, has been a valuable factor in the for-
mation of the Christian character. The term " Bible
Christians," though it has been degraded to serve as the
name of an obscure sect, is no unfair description of a
very high and noble type of Christian jteople, of whom
in our own country we may name as examples, Wesley,
and Wilberforce, and Simeon, and Cecil, and Scott, and
Newton. To these men, the word of God as contained

70 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III.

in the Scriptures was the very pivot upon which their
life turned. In it they sought, and sought not in vain,
the motive power by which to raise their generation to
a higher level. They knew the Bible thoroughly ; they
accepted its authority absolutely and unquestioningly ;
they taught it unceasingly ; they tried themselves by
its standard ; they lived by its precepts. And it is
certain that they did a great and lasting work. Other
influences, no doubt, have been at work ; but no one
who knows anything of the history of the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries will deny that to the Evan-
gelical revival was due the beginning of that upward
movement which we trust is far from having reached its
highest point. But though the work of these men lasts,
though we look back to them as noble examples of
Christian holiness, yet not only is the special form of
religious life which they illustrate no longer largely
influential, but where it exists it tends to be obstructive,
unprogressive, unfruitful. And if we ask why this is
so, why a phase of religious energy which once seemed
able to move the world has lost its power, is not the
answer this, that they practically held that when the
last word of the last book of the Canon of the New
Testament was written, God ceased to reveal Himself to
man ; that they were so engrossed with the letter that
they failed to see that the Spirit of God is still leading
men into all the truth, that He has never ceased to
teach the Church by the experience of history, by the
light of science, by the widening of men's thoughts with
the progress of the suns, by the new knowledge and the

Lect. III.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 71

new forms of industry and of social life which His
creative power opens up ?

For this surely is the essential distinction which
separates Christianity from all other religions and reve-
lations — that whereas they profess to be complete and
final, the Christian revelation consists not in a book, but
in a life and a spirit; it is "incomprehensible," not
to be adequately and completely measured and ex-
pressed in any form of words, not to be limited by the
conceptions of any age or Church. Though heaven and
earth pass away, Christ's words shall not pass away,
because they are spirit and they are life.

This would appear to be the true reply to those who
would place Mohammedanism in any kind of competi-
tion or rivalry with Christianity. It is not to be denied
that in many respects the religion of Islam teaches a
very high and pure morality ; that it has laid hold on
races which Christianity has not been able to touch ;
that it " wrought a great religious and social reforma-
tion among the pagan Arabs ; " that its effect on its
modern converts is a salutary one. But it is a religion
of the letter and not of the spirit ; it has not in it the
capacity of development, of self-adaptation ; it has no
fitness to become a universal religion. In its best days
it has produced a brilliant civilization ; it has fostered
science and literature ; there have been times when it
seemed as though Islam were more progressive than
Christianity : but it has upon it the mark of finality ;
it is not, it can never become, the religion of humanity ;
and it lacks the one supreme sanction, the great motive

72 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III.

force which Christ attached to His law—" If ye love Me,
keep My commandments."

" Mohammed's truth lay in a holy Book,

Christ's in a sacred life.
So while the world rolls on from change to change,

And realms of thought expand,
The letter stands without expanse or range,

Stiff as a dead man's hand ;
"While, as the life-blood fills the growing form,

The Spirit Christ has shed
Flows through the ripening ages fresh and warm,

More felt than heard or read.
And therefore, though ancestral sympathies

And closest ties of race
May guard Mohammed's precepts and decrees

Through many a tract of space,
Yet in the end the tight-drawn line must break,

The sapless tree must fall,
Nor let the form one time did well to take

Be tyrant over all." *

Probably the best hope that we can form for the
exegesis of the future is that it should be literal in the
sense of understanding the text of Scripture according
to the ordinary rules of interpretation applied to other
writings, and spiritual in the sense of seeking to extract
from the local and temporary and personal accidents the
eternal principles of truth which these contain. In the
Old Testament it will perhaps be less occupied in point-
ing out how this or that detail in the Mosaic ritual
referred to Christ, or how this or that prophecy was
fulfilled in His life, and more in showing how God, for
the sake of all nations, trained and educated Israel by
1 Lord Houghton's " Poems."

Lect. III.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 73

the object-lessons of worship and sacrifice, by the poetry
of the Psalmists, by the lofty moral teaching of the
Prophets, to receive and to transmit to the world His
great revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ. It will
approach the New Testament without d priori theories
of inspiration, and will endeavour from a consideration
of the actual phenomena of the books to ascertain their
place in the economy of the spiritual kingdom. It will
recognize in the Bible very various degrees of spiritual
enlightenment ; it will not, like the Puritans, find
maxims of modern politics in the Hebrew Prophets, nor
the minutiae of Christian theology in the Hebrew
Psalmists ; it will not mistake poetry for prose, nor the
voices of men for the Voice of God ; above all, if it is to
be fruitful, it will seek to be led by the Living Spirit
into all truth, and will acknowledge with St. Augustine,
that he will best understand Scripture whose heart is
full of love. 1

There seems reason to fear that the habitual study of
Scripture as a necessity of the spiritual life is more rare
than it was formerly. If so, it is a thing much to be
lamented. If we have laid aside some superstitious and
mechanical theories of inspiration, if we have learnt that
the Word of God comes to us not only in the Bible, but
also in the inward voice of the Spirit and in the discipline
of His providence throughout our lives, yet we have not
outgrown, we can never outgrow, the teaching of Christ

1 Aug., Serm. ccol. : "Divinarum scripturarum multiplicem
abundant) am, latissimamque doctrinam, sine ullo errore compre-
hendit, et sine ullo labore custodit, cujus cor plenum est caritate."

74 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. III.

and of His Apostles. If in the past the Bible has been
misunderstood through bondage to the letter, that should
encourage us to study it more earnestly under the
freedom of the spirit. To quote the words of Bishop
Temple, " the immediate work of our day is the study
of the Bible. Other studies will act upon the progress
of mankind by acting through and upon this. For while
a few highly educated men here and there, who have
given their minds to special pursuits, may think the
study of the Bible a thing of the past, yet assuredly, if
their science is to have its effect upon men in the mass,
it must be by affecting their moral and religious convic-
tions. In no other way have men been, or can men be,
deeply and permanently changed. But though this
study must be for the present and for some time the
centre of all studies, there is meanwhile no study of
whatever kind which will not have its share in the
general effect." 1 Since those words were written, nearly
thirty years ago, all other studies in the University have
received a notable impulse. Let it not be said that the
study of Scripture languishes. In the new world which
is coming upon us, the world in which the younger
among us will have to take their part, it will be more
than ever needful that the scribe who hath been made
a disciple unto the kingdom of Heaven should bring
forth out of his treasure things new and old : the new
science of religion, of language, of textual criticism, of
the laws of nature ; and the old reverence, the old
godliness, the old familiarity with the text of Scripture.

1 " Essays and Eeviews," p. 48.

ect. III.] IN SCRIPTURE EXEGESIS 75

ti the two great uprisings of the English people, the
;clesiastical revolt of the sixteenth and the political of
ie seventeenth century, the letter of the Bible exercised
vast influence. God grant that in the great social
lovements which this and the coming age are likely to
fitness, the spirit of the Bible may act not less power-
ally upon the minds and actions of men.

LECTURE IV.

IN THE CHURCH.

" For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly ; neither is that
circumcision, which is outward in the flesh : but he is a Jew, which
is one inwardly ; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit,
and not in the letter: whose praise is not of men, but of God." —
Eom. ii. 28.

Before entering upon our subject to-day, it will be well
to recall as briefly as possible the main points of the
previous lectures.

From a consideration of the passages in which St.
Paul uses the terms " letter " and " spirit," we saw that
primarily he means by the letter the fixed, rigid, un-
changeable code which was the basis of the Jewish
polity, the system which he commonly sums up under
the name of the Law, under which he had himself been
brought up, and which, since he had been delivered from
it, he had come to regard with something bke personal
animosity, as a grown man might regard a harsh tutor
who, with the best of motives, had oppressed him and
made him miserable in his boyhood. And by the
spirit we saw that he meant that Living Force which is
the ever-present inspiration of the Christian life, not the

Lect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 77

law of a carnal commandment, but the power of an encl-
[ess life. 1 But from this root-idea we traced the growth
}f the later use of the terms, to denote the distinction
between that which is fixed, unchangeable, and therefore
transitory, and that which has the capacity of growth
and development and therefore of permanence, in enact-
ments, institutions, customs, polities. We recognized
the same two elements under varying forms in Church
history, in human life and thought, and in the changed
and changing life of this University. And passing on,
in the second and third lectures, to the letter and the
spirit in Scripture exegesis, we discussed the Jewish
view of the Sacred Books of the Old Covenant, and its
influence on the Christian Church ; and having spoken
of the allegorical method of interpretation, and its
tendency to sacrifice the letter to the supposed spiritual
sense, I indicated what appears to be the true view of
Scripture, that it is not a formal theological treatise but
a sacred literature ; and I showed from several instances
bow we should apply the principle of the supremacy of
the spirit over the letter to the interpretation of the
New Testament writings. To-day I propose to consider
the contrast between the letter and the spirit, between
the unchangeable and formal and the variable and
spiritual element, in reference to the kingdom of Christ.
The distinction between the end and the means is
me which is very familiar to us in theory, but which
oractically is very liable to be overlooked. As objects
aearer to the eye seem larger than those more remote, so
1 Heb. vii. 16.

78 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV.

there is a tendency for the means to shut out the view
of the end, and to become ends in themselves. This is
conspicuously the case in political matters. Persons
associate together for the sake of some object or for
the promotion of some political principle, but soon the
association itself takes the place of the object, and it
is thought more necessary to support the party than to
promote the ends for which the party came into exist-
ence. And in the same way laws and observances
survive the purpose for which they were created, and are
kept up when that purpose is either attained or forgotten.
And perhaps this tendency is still stronger in the case
of institutions and observances connected with religion,
because these are naturally apt to become invested with
a sacred character, and to have ascribed to them a value
and an importance independent of their object. The
whole history of religion is full of instances of the way
in which things originally designed simply as means to
an end become ends in themselves and the original end
is lost sight of. The Sabbath, designed as a beneficent
interval of rest for the servants, the cattle, and the
stranger, has become to the modern Jew a burdensome
and meaningless formality. Prayer, the communion of
the human with the Divine Spirit, has often degenerated
into the mere saying of offices, the telling of beads, the
unintelligent repetition of Paternosters and Aves, or the
turning of a wheel on which prayers are inscribed.
" Omnia fatis in pejus ruere ; " there is a downward
tendency in things, which, unless counteracted by the
living power of the Spirit, will drug clown the highest

Lect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH

79

md holiest things till they become meaningless" and
useless. And therefore in respect of all institutions,
organizations, observances, whether religious, social,
political, or of whatever kind, it is necessary to ask
what is their original meaniDg and purpose ? For what
were they founded ? Have they in any way swerved
from their original intention, and if so, has it been a
legitimate deflection or not ? What in them is essential
and what accidental ? What is part of the original
institution, and what is the after-growth and accretion
of later times ? For there is no such thing as a Divine
right for any institution whatever to exist independently
of the object for which it exists. If it fails through any
inherent incapacity to fulfil that object, it is condemned ;
if it fails partially from causes which are removable, it
requires reform ; if other institutions fulfil it equally
well, they have established a prima-facie right to exist
side by side with it.

We must not suppose that the most venerable of
institutions, the Church of Christ, is exempt from such
inquiry as to its object and its methods : for the Church,
though Divine in its origin and its consummation, is still
a human society, and all that is human is liable to decay
and renewal and change and growth. The legitimacy
of this inquiry is admitted by Cardinal Newman him-
self, when he argues that it is impossible to conceive of
ultra-Protestantism as develoj)ed out of primitive Chris-
tianity. It is possible, indeed, in the political sphere to
evade its force by arguing that an institution which has
outlived its original purpose may yet be preserved for

80 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV.

the sake of some collateral advantage, or some new
function to which it has adapted itself: hereditary
monarchy, for example, if it is no longer useful for giving
to government the vigour and unity of purpose which
comes of its being centred in a single hand, may well be
defended on the ground that it connects us with the
past, that it is an impressive symbol of the unity of the
commonwealth, or that it saves us from the mischievous
intrigues that might result from an elective headship of
the State ; but in the case of religious institutions no
deflection from first principles is permissible, if we
believe that those first principles are of Divine authority
and rest on an eternal basis.

Strictly speaking, we as Christians possess one and
one only religious institution — the Church. All else, the
the Faith, the Scriptures, the Sacraments, the Ministry,
the ordinances of worship, the beneficent organizations,
are but departments and functions of the one Catholic
Church. And it therefore becomes a question of primary
importance, What is the true end and object, what is the
essence, of the Christian Church ?

We shall probably not be far from the mark if we
say that the end for which the Church exists is the
perfecting of redeemed humanity. To this all is sub-
ordinate ; whatever does not directly or indirectly con-
duce to this is no essential function of the Church;
whatever makes for this end ought to be claimed as part
of the Church's work. It will not be necessary now to
enlarge upon this point, but it is well that it should be
clearly stated and borne in mind, that it may guide us

Lect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 81

in discussing the further question, What is essential, and
what is accidental in the framework and constitution of
the Church ?

It has been lately said by an eminent representative
of Nonconformity, 1 whose presence in Oxford is a
welcome sign of the times, that "there is no evidence
that Jesus ever created, or thought of creating, an
organized society. There is no idea he so little empha-
sizes as the idea of the Church. He uses the term but
twice — once in the local or congregational sense, and
once in the universal, but only so as to define His own
sole authority and supremacy. His familiar idea is the
kingdom of God or of Heaven ; but this kingdom is
without organization, and incapable of being organized.
... It is essentially the contrary and contrast of what
is now understood as the Church, whether Catholic or
Anglican." It is certain that Dr. Fairbairn does not
reject the idea of religious organization : what he means
apparently is, that Christ Himself did not found or even
contemplate an organized society. That He did not
found one will be admitted by all ; that He did not
contemplate one is difficult to suppose, in view of his
words, " On this rock I will build My Church." For
oiK-oSo/Aetv iKKhrfa-iav are hardly words that could be
used of the mere implanting in the world of a new
principle of spiritual life ; and if we accept the mission
of the Holy Spirit as a part of Christ's work, and if,
further, we admit that the Christian people were to be
builded together for an habitation of God in the Spirit,
1 Dr. Fairbairn, in Contemporary Beview, July, 1885.

G

82 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV.

then it would seem to follow that the formation of a
society was contemplated by Christ ; and a society
without organization is something like a contradiction
in terms. Indeed, the new commandment which Christ
gave to His disciples — "That ye love one another; as
I have loved you, that ye also love one another " — in-
volves the establishment of very close relations between
His disciples. The very first words of His prayer, " Our
Father," imply that those who use it are joined together
as members of a family. And though in a family there
is no formal organization, and all authority proceeds
directly from the father, yet there is a kind of informal
and spontaneous division of offices which answers very
much to what appears to have been the gradual process
of development of offices in the Church.

And this seems to point to the true theory of the
constitution of the Christian Church. It is at once a
family and a kingdom : a family, because from the one
Father all fatherhood and brotherhood, all human
relations, are derived ; a kingdom, because all authority
is derived from the King, all government centres in
Him. And just as in the English monarchy the existing
forms of government were evolved gradually and, as it
were, spontaneously, in accordance with the requirements
of the national life, so that what we call the constitution
is no formally contrived system, but the outgrowth of
circumstances : so the constitution of the Christian
Church is not a Divinely appointed order in the sense of
having been imposed by a command of Christ, or by an
ordinance of the Apostles, but rather the result of the

Lect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 83

conditions of the Christian society ; it is a form of polity
which we can, not without difficulty, but yet with reason-
able probability, trace the origin and development, an
organization which in any stage of its history involves
the possibility of further development, of progressive
adaptation to the changing circumstances of the Church,
an institution, not of the letter, not fixed and stereotyped
for all time, but of the spirit, capable of assuming new
shapes without any breach of historic continuity.

The question whether a given form of organization
is of the essence of the Church of Christ, so that we can
sharply define the Church as that body of Christian
people which possesses a threefold ministry with direct
organic succession from the Apostles, to which the
Eoman Church would add the further qualification of
submission to the see of Eome ; or whether the Church
in its essence is simply the association of those who
profess belief in Christ and obedience to Him, organiza-
tion being, indeed, in the nature of things indispensable,
and yet an accident not bound up in the nature of the
institution, is one which lies at the root of our concep-
tion of Christianity. For it makes the whole difference
to that conception whether we hold, on the one hand,
that Christ did, either directly or through His Apostles,
institute a form of government by which His Church
was to be characterized and distinguished until His
coming again, or, on the other hand, that He put into
men's hearts and wrote on their minds a law — the law
of love — which should draw them together in one body,
and left them free to organize themselves under the

84 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV.

formative guiding and influence of the Spirit. It is a
question on which practical issues depend. If the former
theory be the true one, the Christian Church at the
present day is confined to the Greek, the Eoman, and
the Anglican communions, and a vast proportion of the
most intelligent and active-minded Christians in the
United States, in the Colonies, and on the Continent
of Europe are outside the Church's pale. If, on the
contrary, we accept the latter theory, it must be
admitted that from a very early period in the history
of Christianity the letter began to prevail over the
spirit, and that for many centuries the true idea of the
kingdom of Heaven was obscured by the growth of a
vast organization, admirably adapted for the age from
which it sprang, and being undoubtedly a part of God's
providential order, yet being after all only a phase, a
temporary and partial presentment of that kingdom of
Heaven which it claimed to embody completely and
exclusively. Which of these difficulties is the greater
may be discussed later ; but at least it may be said,
that on those who accept the Reformation there lies no
obligation to represent the Church as having attained
to a full comprehension of the truth otherwise than
gradually and painfully, or as having been free from
much superstition and many unworthy conceptions of
God and of His kingdom.

I propose to consider first the historical argument,
and then the general spirit and tone of the New Testa-
ment.

It is undoubtedly true that, so far as the existing

Lect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 85

documents can be trusted as adequate records, Christ
Himself gave no directions whatever as to matters of
Church organization. It has indeed been argued that
this must have been among the things pertaining to
the kingdom of God, of which our Lord spoke to His
disciples after His resurrection. But to this it may be
replied, that this is an unsiipported assumption, and
that when He does speak of the kingdom of God or of
Heaven, it is without any reference whatever to any
material framework or organization. So that for the
intention of Christ and His Apostles we are thrown
back upon the general spirit and tendency of their teach-
ing and practice, as recorded in the Gospels, the
Epistles, and the Acts of the Apostles. And in order
to form to ourselves an idea of this spirit and tendency,
we must endeavour to put out of sight for a moment all
the accretions of eighteen centuries of Church history,
and to place ourselves in the position of those who saw
the works and heard the words of Christ, or of those
who in the little assemblies of Christian believers
listened to the letters written by " Paul, an Apostle not
from men, neither through man, but through Jesus
Christ, and God the Father," and so to gather, as it were
at first hand, what was in their thoughts when they
spoke or wrote of the kingdom of Heaven.

Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel of the
kingdom of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and
the kingdom of God is at hand ; repent ye, and believe
the Gospel." And when He has gathered round Him a
little band of followers, He sends them forth to preach

86 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV.

that the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Of that king-
dom He gave no definition, but many descriptions.
The parables of the tares, the mustard seed, the leaven,
the hidden treasure, the pearl, the draw-net ; of the
labourers in the vineyard, of the wicked husbandmen,
of the marriage of the king's son, and of the ten virgins,
are expressly introduced by Him as likenesses of the
kingdom of Heaven. The idea of a kingdom was no
doubt borrowed from the Old Covenant, in which Israel
was sharply marked off as God's special people and
kingdom, in contrast to the nations round about; and
so the kingdom of Heaven in the New Covenant would
mean that order of things in which God's will should
be the law, and His purpose of redemption should be
carried out. On the other hand, it is remarkable that
when the disciples use the term, they at once import
into it the idea of organization and personal preferment.
"The disciples came to Jesus, saying, Who is the
greatest in the kingdom of Heaven ? " 1 And He pointed
out to them that their state of mind was quite incom-
patible with being subjects of the kingdom. " Except
ye be converted" — except your whole attitude be
changed — " and ye become as little children, ye shall not
enter into the kingdom of Heaven." A significant in-
dication, surely, of the change which was destined to
come over the conception of the kingdom, as soon as it
passed from the mind of the Master into those of His
disciples ! In Christ's mouth, the kingdom of Heaven
is the carrying out of the true relation of mankind to
1 Matt, xviii. 1.

Lect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 87

God ; in the mouth of the disciples, it is the hierarchy
in which, as in earthly kingdoms, those who are nearest
to the Kiug shall enjoy a supremacy over the rest. The
only idea of pre-eminence of which Christ ever speaks is
that of those who had followed Him and continued with
Him in His temptations, who should eat and drink at
His table in His kingdom, and sit on thrones judging
the twelve tribes of Israel. It is, in fact, true in the
strictest sense to say, that the kingdom of Heaven in
our Lord's conception is independent of organization.
He spoke of the kingdom of God, not as a thing which
should hereafter grow up, but as being already in their
midst. He was among them, and " Ubi Christus, ibi
ecclesia." 1 The binding principle of His kingdom was
love to God and love to man : its charter was, " Where
two or three are gathered together in My Name, there
am I in the midst of them." The guarantee of its per-
manence was His promise that, when His visible Pre-
sence was removed, He would send the Paraclete to
abide with His people for ever. And accordingly, after
His departure, we find the disciples united together, not
merely by the animating memory of the past, but by
the living and penetrating and pervading influence of
the Divine Spirit ; the kingdom of God took visible
shape in a society. Of this society the Apostles were
the appointed and natural leaders ; and to their com-
pany was soon added one who laboured more abun-

1 "0-7TOU av rj Xpioros 'lr/a-ovs, eKet r/ KaBoKiKr] iKK\r]<ria (Ignat.
ad Smyrn., 8). This seems to be the earliest mention of the
Catholic Church.

88 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV.

dantly than they all, one who was not a whit behind
the chiefest Apostles, Paul of Tarsus, the Apostle of the
Gentiles. By his energy were gathered Churches in the
cities of Asia Minor and of the Mediterranean seaboard ;
and it is in them that we are able to trace, through the
medium of his letters, the growth of the earliest Church
organization.

Let us turn for a moment to the phenomena which
are discernible in them.

In the Epistle to the Philippians, St. Paul sends
greeting to the saints in Christ Jesus with the bishops
and deacons. The same names appear in the Pastoral
Epistles, where also elders or presbyters are spoken of.
And in the Acts of the Apostles St. Paul sends from
Miletus to Ephesus and summons the presbyters of the
Church, whom in addressing them he calls bishops.
And St. Peter, in writing to the presbyters as a fellow-
presbyter, alludes to their office as that of the Episco-
pate. So far we find three official names in use —
Bishops, Presbyters, Deacons. But it is now universally
conceded that the first two belong to one and the same
office, the argument on behalf of modern Episcopacy
being that the name of Bishop was gradually detached
from the Presbyters, and was applied exclusively to
those chief pastors who succeeded to the Apostles in the
general oversight and government of the Churches. Up
to this point, the matter might seem tolerably simple.
But in two other important Epistles the phenomena
seem to point in a different direction. In the First
Epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul, in writing of the

.ect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 89

pork of the Spirit in the Church, says, "God hath set
ome in the Church, first apostles, secondly prophets,
hirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings,
telps, governments, divers kinds of tongues." It is, of
ourse, possible to argue that these were some of them
;xtraordinary and all of them temporary offices, which
vere afterwards drawn up and remoulded into the per-
nanent organization of the Church ; but it seems diffi-
cult to believe that these offices, which, as we cannot
>ut observe, are catalogued with singular precision and
brmality, " First apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly
eachers," co-existed either in the same or in different
>ersons with the other and more permanent offices of
>resbyters and deacons. In the Epistle which is in-
cribed to the Ephesians, St. Paul says, " Unto each one
if us was the grace given according to the measure of
he gift of Christ. . . . And he gave some to be
postles ; and some, prophets ; and some, evangelists ;
nd some pastors and teachers : for the perfecting of the
aints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building
Lp of the body of Christ." Here the offices seem sonic -
rhat less difficult to reconcile with those of the pres-
yterate and diaconate which, according to the First
Upistle to Timothy, 1 appear to have existed at Ephesus
ot much later ; but if we look at the allusions to
)hurch organization in the Acts and the Epistles without

1 It is unnecessary to discuss tbe genuineness of the First
Epistle to Timothy. Even M. Eenan, who adopts the conclusions
f the Tubingen school against it, frequently quotes it as historical
vidence.

90 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV.

any tendency to interpret them into conformity with
later history, we must certainly admit that, while
ecclesiastical offices seem already to be taking some a
purely local and others a more general character, it is
difficult to find any sanction to any one form of Church
government, and that, in Hooker's words, " In tying the
Church to the orders of the Apostles' times, they tie it
to a marvellous uncertain rule." 1 The Churches un-
doubtedly had their several organizations, not apparently
the same everywhere ; the Church as yet had none.

After the close of the New Testament Canon, Church
history is like one of those streams in certain geological
formations, which disappear underground, the course of
which can only be conjectured from the direction which
they are found to be taking when they emerge again to
the light. We can discern something of the course of
things in St. Paul's time ; from the writings of the so-
called Apostolic Fathers, and of Tertullian, and from the
Teaching of the twelve Apostles, we can perceive that
much must have happened in the interval ; but there is
a break between the Apostolic and the sub-Apostolic
age in which we have no documentary evidence to guide
us. Without entering on any full discussion of the
origin of the Christian ministry — a discussion which,
indeed, is somewhat wide of our subject — we may say
that by the end of the second decade of the second
century we see manifesting itself in the Church at large
a tendency to Episcopacy, in the sense of a single ruler
in each Church, acting as President of the Council of

1 Hooker, "Eccl. Pol.," bk. i., c. ii , § 2.

ect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 91

'resbyters ; and by the end of the second century we
mnot fail to recognize Episcopal government as cha-
icteristic of the Church. Indeed, it will hardly be
sriously disputed, that, if any one form of Church
rganization possesses exclusive Apostolic sanction and
uthority, it is the Episcopal form. The investigations
f Eothe in Germany, and of Bishop Lightfoot and Dr.
latch in England, have so far simplified the cpiestion,
hat the contention of Cartwright in the sixteenth
entury — that Presbyterianism is the only lawful form
f Church government — is hardly likely to be repeated,
'he issue now is a comparatively simple one — Is Episco-
pacy of Divine institution and authority, in a,ny other
ense than that in which it may be predicated of every
ettled form' of government, ecclesiastical and political,
hat it is ordained of God 1

The argument that, if a special form of organization
.'ere essential to the Church, Christ would have given
lis disciples definite and clear directions concerning it,
hough undoubtedly weighty, may yet be pressed too
ir. For it may be replied, " True, Christ did not Himself
ive any directions as to the form which His Church
ras to assume, but He promised that the Spirit should
uide them into all truth ; and we find as a matter of
ict that it is to the Spirit's agency that all gifts, both
f government and of teaching in the Church, are
jferred." But the contention goes deeper than this.
? . the Christian Dispensation is not of the letter but
f the spirit, if it differs from the Old Dispensation
tainly in this, that whereas the old was a system of

92 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV.

restricted sanctities, in which a particular nation, a par-
ticular family, particular clays and particular places were
set apart as holy, in the New all this is reversed, and
all nations, all men, all places, and all times are in
principle alike holy, then no form of organization can
be essential ; it can only concern the bene esse and not
the esse of the Church. This is the principle on which
Hooker relies in his great argument against the Puritans.
They maintained that no form of Church policy was
lawful except the Presbyterian. Hooker replied, not
that Episcopacy alone was lawful, but that no form was
prescribed as essential, and that therefore Episcopacy-
was lawful. 1 " He which affirmeth speech to be necessary
among all men throughout the world, doth not thereby
import that all men must necessarily speak one kind of
language. Even so the necessity of polity and regiment
in all Churches may Lie held without holding any one
certain form to be necessary in them all." 2 By no one has
the spiritual nature of the kingdom of Christ been stated
with more luminous clearness or more judicial precision
than by Bishop Lightfoot. " The kingdom of Christ,
not being a kingdom of this world, is not limited by
the restrictions which fetter other societies, political or
religious. It is in the fullest sense free, comprehensive,
universal. ... It has no sacred days or seasons, no
special sanctuaries, because every time and every place
alike are holy. Above all, it has no sacerdotal system.
It interposes no sacrificial tribe or class between God and

1 Hooker, bk. vii., c. ii.

2 Ibid., bk. iii., c. ii., § i.

ect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 93

lan, by whose intervention alone God is reconciled and
lan forgiven. Each individual member holds personal
}mmunion with the Divine Head. To Him immediately
e is responsible, and from Him directly he obtains
ardon and draws strength." And further, while
dmitting the necessity for convenience' sake, of appoint-
lg special times and places for meetings for worship,
e adds, " For communicating instruction and for pre-
3rving public order, for conducting religious worship
nd for dispensing social charities, it became necessary
appoint special officers. But the priestly functions
nd privileges of the Christian people are never regarded
s transferred or even delegated to these officers. They
re called stewards or messengers of God, servants or
ministers of the Church ; but the sacerdotal title is
ever once conferred on them. The only priests under
he Gospel, designated as such in the New Testament,
re the saints, the members of the Christian brother-
.ood." 1

Here we have, set forth by a great master of
heology, a clear statement of the true theory of the
Christian ministry. It is not a sacerdotal order ; the
riestly character belongs to the Christian people at
irge, and cannot be alienated by or taken away from
hem ; 2 it is not a succession through which a Divine
onuence is handed on by imposition of hands ; it is an

1 Bishop Lightfoot, " Essay on the Christian Ministry."

2 " The most exalted office in the Church, the highest gift of
he Spirit, conveyed no sacerdotal right which was not enjoyed by
be humblest member of the Christian community." — Bishop
jightfoot, he. cit.

94 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV.

office and administration pertaining to the whole Chris-
tian body, but exercised from the necessity of the case
by a certain number " called and chosen to this work
by men who have public authority given unto them in
the congregation, to call and send ministers into the
Lord's vineyard." And therefore in our definition of
the Church we are not to introduce as a differentia that
it possesses this or that form of ministry, any more than
in defining an army we should specify that it must have
so many grades of officers : officers of some kind it must
have, or it will be a mob and not an army ; but there
is no reason in the nature of things why different regi-
ments should not have different grades, some more, some
less. And so in respect of Church offices, it is not
necessary that they "be in all places one, and utterly
alike ; " for the definition of the Church is not tied to
a special form of ministry, but " the visible Church of
Christ is a congregation of faithful men [ccetus fidelium\,
in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the
Sacraments be duly ministered, according to Christ's
ordinance in all those things that of necessity are
requisite to the same." 1

It is true, as I have already admitted, that the
historical argument appears at first sight strong on the
other side. From the time of Cyprian to the time of
the Eeformation, the Episcopate existed everywhere, and
was regarded as an essential element in the Church. But
Church history did not begin with Cyprian, neither did
it end with the Eeformation. Bishop Lightfoot's "Essay
1 Article XIX.

:ct. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 95

l the Christian Ministry" indicates how gradually,
id not in all places simultaneously, Episcopal govern-
ent was evolved : and it is plain that at the Reforrna-
3n, while the Churches which adhered to the Roman
>edience retained the theory that Catholicity depended

I submission to the Roman See, the Reformed Churches

II back on the primitive theory that the Church is the
mgregation of Christians, and assumed the right of
vising for themselves both their organization and
teir doctrinal formulas. And accordingly for now
ore than three centuries we see Christendom divided
) longer into the two great communions of the East
id West, but into a multiplicity of differently organized
)dies, all professing and calling themselves Christian,
1 claiming to belong to the universal Church, all aiming

; the promotion of the kingdom of Heaven, yet not
)und together by any outward uniformity. And we
rtice further that it is precisely in those periods and
. those countries where there is most enlightenment,
ost progress, most religious and political activity, that
iere is least uniformity of religious life. So that the
storical argument seems to break down, and it is no
nger possible to point to the universal acceptance of
le form of Church government as an argument for its
liversal obligation. The truth appears to be that
piscopacy in the Ecclesiastical sphere occupies a
)sition analogous to that of Monarchy in the political,
be writers of the seventeenth century who asserted
Le Divine right of Bishops asserted no less strongly
ie Divine right of Kings. And both the scriptural

96 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV.

and the historical arguments were as strong for the one
as for the other theory. But the English people rejected
the arguments of Sherlock and Sir Eobert Filmer.
They did not indeed abolish monarchy, but by placing
William of Orange on the throne they practically
asserted the right of the people to choose its own
Government. Thus, in the case of monarchy, the logic
of facts has proved too strong for d priori theories;
and no one now refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy
of republican government where it is established by the
will of the people. But the Divine right of Episcopacy
is still maintained in spite of accomplished facts, and
loyalty to the Church is made to consist, not in zeal
for righteousness and brotherly love, but in the refusal
to acknowledge as Christian ministers all who lack the
imposition of Episcopal hands. But to those who
believe that God reveals His will not once for all but
progressively, by the working of His providence on the
course of history, it will not seem reasonable to suppose
that the development of Christian life in new forms
which dates from the sixteenth century has been an
infraction of the Divine plan, and that to accomplish
that unity for which Christian people hope and pray,
it is necessary to go back three hundred years. I
remember some two and twenty years ago hearing a
preacher in the Duomo of Florence, whose one panacea
for the evils that then afflicted the Church and the world
was the oft-repeated refrain, " Submit to the Koman
Pontiff." That does not sound very reasonable advice
in the light of subsequent events : but is it less

Lect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 97

reasonable than the attempt to bring about the unity
rf the Spirit by a universal submission to the Episcopate,
Anglican or Roman as the case may be ? Can we look
it Christendom as it at present exists, and believe that,
while the Eastern Church is a legitimate branch of the
Church Catholic, the non-Episcopal communions of the
West, with their manifold activities, their close contact
with the life and thought of the present day, are outside
the pale ? Was the Christian faith more influential,
was the Christian life truer and purer, when the Church
was outwardly one, than it is now 1

Some years ago a great authority exhorted politicians
to use maps constructed on a large scale ; meaning that
by so doing they would gain a juster view of the true
proportions and relations and boundaries of different
territories. The same advice might well be given to
ecclesiastics. We are too apt to regard Church history
from our own point of view, and to go to it to find
confirmation for our own preconceived theories, rather
than to trace in it the gradual working out of God's
plan, the evolution of His spiritual kingdom. And so,
too, we are apt to confine our view to our own special
territory, till we come to identify this with the Catholic
Church. But as Goethe said, " Hinter clem Berge sind
auch Leute " — there are people beyond the mountains, —
so beyond the hills which stand round about our Jeru-
salem there are active, intelligent, devout Christian com-
munities, and if we refuse to hold commerce with them,
we shall be doing wrong both to ourselves and to them.

We are brought back, then, to the fundamental ques-

H

98 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV.

tion, What is the true relation of the Christian ministry
to the constitution of the Christian Church ? St. Paul,
in the passage to which I have already referred in these
lectures, describes the Jewish priesthood as Sia/cowi
•yyDa/A/xaros, the Christian as Suxkovoi Trvev^aTo^. The
former would be those who are charged with the
administration of a system written and engraven on
stones. Their ministry would be one of routine ; their
ideal would be the formal adherence to a written code.
Such a priesthood is made, to use the language of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, Kara vo/xov ivToXrjs crap/ctV^s —
after the law of a carnal commandment. The succession
of such a priesthood would be a formal and carnal one.
But the Christian priesthood, being a ministry of the
Spirit, was Kara Syvafjuv tfii^ aKaraXvTov — after the
power of an endless life. The essence of a minister of
the Old Covenant was that he should be of the family
of Aaron. The essence of a minister of the New
Covenant is, that he should be called of God. And
ordination in the Christian Church is, not the adding
of one more link to the mystic chain through which the
Divine influence is transmitted from the Apostles to
the modern Church, not the empowering a man by
certain ritual acts to convey grace to the people, but
the solemn recognition of the Divine call, the choosing
and calling to the work of the ministry " by men who
have publick authority given unto them in the Con-
gregation, to call and send Ministers into the Lord's
vineyard."

But if this is so, it follows of necessity that the

Lect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 99

essence of the Church cannot depend upon the form of
the ministry ; for then it would be, not of the spirit, but
of the letter. The Church does not depend upon the
ministry, but rather the ministry upon the Church.
That this was the view taken at the Reformation, the
view which the English Church distinctly and deliberately
accepted and acted upon, I shall endeavour to show in
a later lecture ; 1 and if at the Restoration in the seven-
teenth century a different view prevailed, that cannot
bind the Church of England for all time to a reactionary
theory. We may be thankful that both Episcopacy and
monarchy have been retained, and that both in Church
and State we possess an organic connection with the
past : but we need not therefore condemn those who
have seen fit to adopt different ecclesiastical or political
organizations ; we may recognize a providential design
in variety no less than in uniformity. Let us not in our
zeal for a theory of Catholicity close our eyes to facts.
Set on the one side the saying of Ignatius, 2 that as
many as are of God and of Christ, they are with the
Bishop ; and on the other the patent facts of religious
life in the English colonies and in the United States,
and shall we say that the teaching of history is to have
no weight against the dictum of an Apostolic Father,
writing under wholly different circumstances and with a
different view ? The Divine will is revealed in the course
of events as well as in the Scriptures ; and if we find
that the grace of God is not limited to any outward

1 See Lecture VIII.

2 Ignatius, Ep. ad Philadelph , iii.

ioo THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. IV.

form or organization, if we find Episcopal Churches,
Presbyterian Churches, Congregationalist Churches, not
only existing but vindicating their right to exist by
fruitful Christian work and by a long and honourable
lineage, must we not be led to the conclusion that any
system which ignores the existence of this variety, and
which, in spite of facts, insists upon so defining the
Church as to exclude from its brotherhood a large part
of the most energetic and intelligent forms of Christian
life, must be defective or erroneous, must need replacing
or supplementing by a theory more adequate to the
facts ? Surely a theory which unites us with the
Abyssinian and Coptic Churches because they have
Bishops, and separates us from the Wesleyans because
they have none, stands self-convicted of unreality ; and
unreality in religion is a dangerous thing.

What, then, you may ask, are we to be contented
with the present disjointed, disorganized condition of
Christendom ? Are we to accept a boundless sectarian-
ism as the highest achievement of the Christian spirit ?
To this question I hope to attempt an answer in a later
lecture, when I come to speak of the Church of the
future. For the present, let us lay to heart this prin-
ciple, that the Christian ministry is a ministry not of
the letter but of the spirit ; that it is not, like that of
the Old Covenant, a service of outward forms and
observances ; but that, unless it is quickened and
instinct with the Spirit of God, it is naught. Let us
settle it in our minds that the ministry is essential to
the Church only in the sense that organization is essen-

Lect. IV.] IN THE CHURCH 101

rial to every society ; that what the minister does is the
ict of the congregation ; and that the highest aim a
minister can set before him is to train his people to be
independent of him. Let us remember that the true
Apostolical succession is a succession not mechanical but
spiritual ; that, as Origen says, 1 the prerogative given to
St. Peter after the letter belongs according to the spirit
to every one who is like St. Peter ; and that, for the
present at least, the truest bond of union for the Church
af Christ is not a common ministry nor a common form
of worship, but a common allegiance to Christ, a unity
not outward, not of the letter, but inward and of the
spirit.

1 Origen, In Matt., tom. xii., ed. Caillau : Kat ei tis Acya
rovro tt/dos avTov . . . T€Tj£erac twv elprjfjLevojv, a»s /xev to ypa/xp-a
tov evayyeXtov Aeyet, 7rpos Ikcivov tov IIeTpoi>, <!>s he to 7rvevfia avTov
SiSaovcei, 7rpos TrdvTa. tov yevo/Atvov, oiroios 6 IleVpos eKetvos.

LECTURE V.

IN THE SACRAMENTS.

" It is the Spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth nothing :
the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life." —
John vi. 63.

The distinction between the letter and the spirit,
between the material and formal, is, as I have already
said, one which runs through all religion, and which
underlies almost all controversies. If once we could
solve the question, with regard to our religious belief and
observances, What is the eternal and unchangeable and
what is the transitory and accidental element ? we should
have arrived at the end of disputations, and should be,
like Eichard Baxter in his later years, "much more
inclinable to reconciling principles." It is my earnest
desire in these lectures to minister to what, I trust, is a
characteristic feature of our time — the tendency to base
our religious life, not on the subtleties of controversial
theology, but rather on the " reconciling principles "
which will endure when the " wood, hay, stubble " which
have been built upon them shall be burnt up.

We have seen that St. Paul describes the ministry of
the New Covenant as a ministry of the spirit, and that
he speaks of Christians as serving God in newness of the

Lect. V.] IN THE SACRAMENTS 103

spirit, and not in oldness of the letter. And in so doing
he is only carrying out the principle laid down by our
Lord, that " God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him
must worship Him in spirit and in truth." And from
this principle of the purely spiritual nature of God's
kingdom it would seem to follow of necessity that all
worship must be spiritual ; that, as all human life is
redeemed and sanctified by Christ, all times and places
and persons are alike holy, and that in the Christian
system there is no room for days or places or persons
specially set apart for the service of God. In a former
lecture I have quoted a weighty passage from Bishop
Light-foot's Essay on the " Christian Ministry," in which
this principle is asserted with the utmost lucidity. But,
after laying down this great ideal, the Bishop at once
acknowledges that it is " strictly an ideal, which we
must ever hold before our eyes, which should inspire
and interpret ecclesiastical polity, but which nevertheless
:annot supersede the necessary wants of human society,
md, if crudely and hastily applied, will lead only to
signal failure." In truth, a purely spiritual religion is
suited only for purely spiritual beings. 1 If in our religion
Ne ignore the material side of our nature, that side of
)ur nature will assuredly assert and avenge itself. And
herefore no religion that has ever existed has been able
•0 dispense with some kind of ritual. In those which
lave attempted it, the very absence of ritual becomes
n itself a kind of traditional form of worship. Hence

1 Cf. " Baxter's Catechizing of Families," p. 392 : " A soul in flesh.
s apt to use sense, and needs some help of it."

io 4 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V.

in modern Christianity we find, partly by direct institu-
tion of Christ, partly as the result of a natural growth
under the influence of its surroundings, a system of
sacraments, ordinances of worship, forms of Church
government, and ecclesiastical customs and traditions,
which form, as it were, the embodiment of the Christian
spirit, and which, to the minds of most persons, are
inseparable from Christianity itself. Still, we must
never forget that all these outward things are but acci-
dents, even if they be inseparable accidents, of the
kingdom of God ; that in its essence that kingdom is
independent of them ; that it is a Covenant, not of letter,
not of outer forms and observances, but of spirit— of
the life which comes direct from God ; that these things
are but means to an end, and that if they are treated as
ends in themselves they at once become hindrances to
the spiritual kingdom.

Our subject to-day is the letter and the spirit, or
the outward and the inward part, in the Sacraments,
limiting the use of the term to the two ordinances which
are specially recognized as such by the Church of
England.

Christ was accustomed to speak of Himself as intro-
ducing or revealing a kingdom. " The kingdom of Heaven
is likened " unto this or that, is the familiar beginning of
His parables as recorded by St. Matthew. But a kingdom
denotes persons standing in a certain relation, first, to
the king, and, secondly, to each other as fellow-subjects.
In other words, to be a disciple of Christ is not merely
to accept His teaching ; it is to enter into and continue

,ect. V.] IN THE SACRAMENTS 105

1 a certain definite relation to Him and to humanity in
lim. And accordingly the only two outward forms
diieh can claim His sanction symbolize, the one ad-
mission to, and the other continuance and confirmation
a, the Christian society or brotherhood. It is in this
ense that St. Paul always appeals to them as witnesses
f the corporate life of the Church : " In one Spirit were
re all baptized into one body ; and were all made to
[rink of one Spirit ; " " The bread which we break, is it
lot a communion of the body of Christ ? seeing that we,
fho are many, are one bread, one body ; for we all
>artake of the one bread ; " " He that eateth and
[rinketh, eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself,
f he discern not the body." Other meanings and other
tenefits, no doubt, may be found in the Sacraments, but
hese are the root-ideas out of which all the rest spring.
Ye proceed, then, to discuss each of the Sacraments
eparately, looking at them in the earliest form in which
re find them, and trying to discriminate between that
vhich is of the letter and that which is of the spirit.

The washing of the body with water was a familiar
ymbol among Oriental nations for the putting off all
aoral pollution and uncleanness. It was enjoined by
he Jewish law as a ceremonial act for the Priests, and
or all persons who had contracted ceremonial defile-
aent ; and it seems certain that before our Lord's
ime it had been adopted as part of the ritual for the
dmission of proselytes into the Jewish Covenant. 1

1 Cf. Bishop Harold Browne, in Smith's " Bible Diet.," s.v.
Baptism." Winer's " Bibl. Bealworterbuch," s.v. "Proselyten."

io6 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V.

This simple and expressive action was adopted by John
the Baptist for his disciples, and by our Lord as the
form of admission into His society ; in each case it was
the outward and visible sign of that putting away of
past sin and entering with purified heart and conscience
upon a new life, which both the one and the other pro-
claimed. And after our Lord's departure, it became by
His appointment the established form by which new-
members were admitted to His Church. To understand
what Baptism was and what it involved in the earliest
clays of the Church, we must remember how entirely it
changed a man's whole life. He had been brought up
in one or other of the heathen religions, a worshipper of
the gods of Greece or Rome or Egypt ; or else he had
been a Jew, taught to believe that in Jerusalem was the
place where men ought to worship ; or perhaps he had
grown up in the philosophical scepticism which had so
largely undermined both Jewish and Gentile religion,
and had learnt as the highest achievement of wisdom —

" Pacata posse omnia mente tueri." 1

But he had accepted Christ as his Master and Saviour,
and he came to profess his faith in Him. He pro-
nounced the words, " I renounce thee, Satan ; I join
myself to Thee, Christ." He was plunged beneath the
baptismal water, and he rose up a Christian. In that
water he washed away the stains of his past life.
Beneath it he was buried with Christ ; from it he rose
to newness of life. It was hardly a metaphor, it was
1 Lucretius, v. 1202.

Lect. V.] IN THE SACRAMENTS 107

almost a literal fact, to say that he was dead, that he
was born again, that he had passed out of darkness into
the light, that he had been initiated. He entered upon
a new career, among new friends and associates, with
new interests, new hopes, new motives, a new and all-
pervading affection.

What a complete contrast, to all outward appear-
ance, to modern Baptism ! An unconscious infant is
brought to the font, often as a mere concession to
custom, often in consequence of much pressure from
the clergyman or his agents ; not uncommonly we find
persons who do not know whether they have been bap-
tized or not ; very rarely is Baptism thought of by
modern Christians as an epoch in their lives. We still
keep the old phraseology ; we still give thanks to God
that the child is regenerate, we still pray that he "may
lead the rest of his life according to this beginning ; "
we still teach children to say that in Baptism they were
made " members of Christ, the children of God, and
inheritors of the kingdom of Heaven ; " but to most
persons this language is unreal, it answers to no kind of
spiritual fact of which they are conscious'. And may we
not trace the reason of this in the history of the Church ?
When the Christian community was in the first freshness
of its new life, when the multitude of them that believed
were of one heart and of one soul, when to become a
Christian was to be welcomed into a united family,
when the Church and the world were so distinct that
Christians naturally spoke and thought of the one as
darkness, the other as light, then to be baptized was

108 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V.

indeed to put on Christ, to be made a member of His
body. But gradually, as the simplicity of the Christian
life wore off — as the Church became, not the natural and
spontaneous union of those who were bound together by
a common faith and a common love, but a great super-
natural corporation, endowed with mysterious powers
for the purpose of saving men's souls from the wrath to
come, — Baptism was no longer the simple act by which
men professed discipleship to Christ and were admitted
to the membership of God's family, but a mystic cere-
mony by which the guilt of original sin was washed
away, by which the evil spirit dwelling in the natural
man was exorcised, by which a mark was impressed and
grace infused into the sou], by which one born under a
curse was reconciled to God. The simple and natural
terms which had formerly been used to express the
greatness of the change involved in coming out of
heathen life into the communion of the Christian Church
■ — regeneration, enlightenment, initiation, sealing, — were
regarded no longer as metaphors, but as literal expres-
sions of a mysterious inward change wrought by contact
with the water and the uttering of the prescribed words.
Infants were brought to be baptized, not as the joyful
and thankful recognition of the fact of God's universal
love, not as a visible declaration of the brotherhood in
which Christ had united all mankind, but to save them
from those everlasting fires to which all who died with-
out Baptism were doomed. 1 And lest any should through

1 Augustine (Contra Julianum, m.) says of an unbaptized
infant, " Quid miraris in igne seterno ciim diabolo futurum, qui in

Lect. V.] IN THE SACRAMENTS 109

difficulty or misadventure be left to so dreadful a fate,
it was mercifully provided that Baptism might be
administered, not only in the congregation or by those
to whom it pertained officially to administer the dis-
cipline and sacraments of the Church, but in any place,
by any person, man or woman. So that the initiatory
act whereby originally converts from heathenism — and
then, in full accordance with the spirit at least of the
New Covenant, infants — were brought into organic union
with the body of Christ, the Christian society, became
little better than a magical incantation, whereby the
Divine favour was procured and the designs of Satan
frustrated.

We can hardly wonder that in different directions
men should have revolted against the hardness of the
letter and striven after something more spiritual. Bap-
tism, said one class of persons, professes to be the
entrance into the kingdom of Heaven : but to enter that
kingdom needs repentance and faith ; surely, then, the
only proper subjects of Baptism are not infants, but
persons capable of repentance and faith. Surely the
only profession of discipleship is that which is made
with full knowledge and deliberate choice ; is it not
more reasonable to wait until persons are of age to
choose for themselves whether they will be Christ's dis-
ciples or not ? On the other hand, another class of
persons maintained that, the kingdom of Christ being

Dei regmim intrare non sinitur?" Elsewhere, indeed (De Pecca-
torum Meritis, 1.), lie says, " Potest proinde recte dici, parvulos sine
baptismo de corpore exeuntes in damnalione omnium levissima futuros."

3 io THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V.

purely spiritual, the only Baptism that was needed was
that of the Spirit ; that the water was a mere temporary-
symbol which the Church in its maturity might safely
dispense with. And nearer to our own day, when an
excessive individualism has proclaimed that a man's
religion is entirely a matter between himself and his
God, and when the corporate character of Christianity-
has been overlooked, Baptism has been reduced to an
edifying ceremony wherein believing parents offered
their children to God. 1

We shall not be able to meet the arguments either
of the Baptist or of the Quaker, until we have risen to
a higher and wider conception of what that society is to
which Baptism admits us. If Baptism is the door of
entrance to a denomination, if we bring children to be
baptized in order that they may adopt this or that set
of opinions, or this or that form of worship, then un-
doubtedly it would be reasonable that we should give
them an opportunity of choosing for themselves what
their religion shall be or whether they will have any
religion. Or if Baptism is set forth to us as a charm to
deliver us from the punishment of the sin of Adam, then
we could understand men thinking that it might be a
less evil to dispense with the outward washing alto-
gether than to have recourse to it as a means of rescu-
ing children from the wrath of their heavenly Father.
But if we will open our minds to the truth that God's

1 It is said that among English. Congregationalists Baptism is
falling into increasing neglect. Indeed, it is not easy to see how-
it fits in with their Church theories.

Lect. V.] IN THE SACRAMENTS tn

will is to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the
heavens and the things upon the earth ; if we will learn
to believe in the Holy Catholic Church, in no restricted
or narrow sense, but as the firstfruits and the represen-
tative of the great human brotherhood ; if we will
remember that Baptism means, not that we have chosen
Christ, but that He has chosen us ; then it will become
to us full of life and meaning, and we shall see in it, not
a mere edifying ceremony, nor yet a means of averting
Divine wrath, but the declaration to each child of God's
Fatherhood, the incorporation of a new member into
that society which Christ founded upon earth to be the
nucleus of a great world-wide brotherhood, in which His
Spirit should dwell, and by which mankind should be
edified into conformity with the Divine plan.

More than half the controversies and misunderstand-
ings which have arisen in the Church have been the
result of interpreting metaphors literally. By Baptism
a person was introduced into a new world of spiritual
influences, just as by birth he had been introduced into
a new world of physical influences. There was an
obvious analogy between the beginnings of the natural
and of the spiritual life. What then could be more
fitting than to speak of the Sacrament whereby an infant
or an adult was brought into contact with the life which
circulated in the Christian society as a new birth ? But
when this simple and expressive metaphor of regenera-
tion was interpreted after the letter, Baptism came to
be looked upon as a charm by which a mysterious
inward change was wrought in the unconscious soul, and

ii2 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V.

men taught that, though concupiscence remained, yet
it was mitigated and diminished by baptismal grace ;
that the Spirit moves upon the face of the waters of
Baptism, and sanctifies them so that they receive power
to sanctify.

" A few calm words of faith and prayer,

A few bright drops of holy dew,

Shall work a wonder there

Earth's charmers never knew."

Who does not see that in all this we have rhetoric mis-
taken for logic, images of spiritual things substituted for
the spiritual truths which they represent ? And if we
would restore the Sacrament of Baptism to its rightful
position as the initiation into the spiritual world, we
must make the Christian society more real, more
Catholic ; we must see that that into which persons are
baptized is not a mere religious denomination, but in
some measure at least the kingdom of Heaven upon
earth. It is true that always the solemnities of religion
represent rather the ideal than the actual ; it is right
that we should use the glowing words of the Baptismal
Office to set forth the great heritage to which all alike
are called, even when we have a sorrowful consciousness
in the particular case that there is little likelihood of
the child being brought up to lead the rest of his life
according to this beginning ; but we must at the same
time remember that it is only by rising out of the literal
into the spiritual that we can make Baptism a reality
of the religious life.

The most striking and interesting instance of the

Lect. V.] IN THE SACRAMENTS 113

relation of the letter to the spirit is undoubtedly to be
found in that great central ordinance of Christianity
which can be regarded under many aspects, and is called
by many names, the Lord's Supper, the Holy Communion,
the Eucharist, the Mass. Let us look for a moment at
the contrasts which under its extreme forms it presents
to us.

In the earliest detailed account of the celebration of
the Lord's Supper, that given by Justin Martyr, we
cannot fail to be struck with the fact that what is
described is a social feast, a popular religious solemnity,
conducted according to an accepted type, yet not without
a certain element of spontaneity, consisting of the offer-
ing of praise and thanksgiving and of the fruits of the
earth, of the consecration of bread and of wine mixed
with water by the presiding brother, 1 who offers up
prayers and thanksgivings according to his power ; 2
:>f the partaking of the consecrated elements by the
assembled people, and of the sending portions to those
who are absent. As we advance, the traces of fixed
iturgical forms become increasingly clear : but every-
where the popular element is conspicuous ; it is always,
'We pray," "We give thanks," "We offer sacrifices."
\.nd with this agree the slight and informal notices in
he Acts of the Apostles and the First Epistle to the
Jorinthians. " The brethren came together to break
'read." "The bread which we break; the cup which

1 IIpo<r<£epcTCU t<5 trpoetrTuiTi Taiy aSeX^iaiv u/dtos, kou wor^piov 10a-
os xai Kpa/iaros. — Just. Mart., Apol., 2.
Oar] 8wa/xis avrw- — X.C.

I

ii4 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V.

we bless." " We, the many, are one bread, one
body."

If a Christian of the second century could return to
life and be present at a Low Mass of the Roman Church,
at which there may or may not be worshippers present,
at which no one but the Priest communicates, at which
no sound of a voice is heard, and from which the social
element is quite absent, would it occur to his mind that
what he saw represented the familiar ceremony in which
he had been accustomed to take part ? It would be a
bold assertion to make. Nay, are we quite sure that in
any Church throughout Christendom — Greek, Roman,
Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Congregationalist,
Methodist — he would see what would recall to him the
Eucharistic Feast of the early Church ?

If this is so — if in this great central act of worship
the variations have been so great ; if the Ordinance of
a rural congregation English of Nonconformists and the
Pontifical High Mass of St. Peter's at Rome both claim
as their origin the acts and words of Christ on the night
before His Passion, both profess to be that perpetual
memory of His Death which He commanded us to
continue until His coming again, it may be well to see
whether under this outward diversity any substratum of
unity exists, — whether, if we trace the Eucharist up
to its Source, we can find a permanent, unchanging
principle which is the same in all ages and in all
Churches.

The earliest documentary evidence we possess
referring to the Eucharist is, of course, the mention of

Lect. v.] IN THE SACRAMENTS 115

it in 1 Cor. x. and xi. : the latter chapter containing
an account of its institution, which St. Paul says he
received of the Lord, and which is evidently akin to
the narrative in St. Luke's Gospel. The other two
synoptic Gospels have a parallel though independent
narrative. From these we gather that, on the night
when our Lord ate His last Passover with His disciples,
He engrafted upon the traditional feast of the Old
Covenant a new observance. He took bread — the un-
leavened Paschal cake — "and when He had given
thanks, He brake it, and said, This is My body,
which is for you : this do in remembrance of Me." And
after supper He took the cup of blessing, which formed
part of the traditional observance though not of the
original institution of the Passover, saying, " This cup
is the New Covenant in My blood : this do, as oft as ye
drink it, in remembrance of Me. For as often as ye eat
this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord's
death till He come." On this simple narrative we may
remark, first, that the Lord's Supper, like His kingdom,
had its roots in the Old Covenant. He used the same
elements which, though only accessory to the Passover,
had yet served for the Paschal meal. He passed by the
lamb, which was the essential element, and took the
unleavened bread, which was a part though not the
central or characteristic part of the feast, and the cup
of wine mixed with water, which was a mere social
addition, and He calls the bread His body, and the cup
the New Covenant in His blood: alluding evidently
to the blood of the Covenant with which Moses had

n6 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V.

sprinkled the people before he went up into the mount. 1
And this bread and this cup, which He thus identified
with Himself, He told His disciples to eat and drink in
remembranee of Him, and with reference (as St. Paul
adds) to His eoming again, or (according to St. Matthew
and St. Mark) to the day when He should drink it new
with them in His Father's kingdom.

But the phenomena of the fourth Gospel in this
connection are very remarkable. The Passover, which
the Synoptists identify with the meal eaten on the
night before the Crucifixion, is relegated by the fourth
Evangelist to the day following that event. And though
a discourse pronounced on the Thursday evening is re-
ported at great length, yet no allusion whatever is made
to the institution of the Eucharist. But, on the other
hand, at a much earlier period of our Lord's ministry,
St. John records a discourse delivered just before an
earlier Passover, the phraseology of which coincides in
a remarkable manner with the language attributed to our
Lord by the Synoptists in connection with the Eucharist.
In the discourse at Capernaum after the feeding of the
five thousand, 2 our Lord speaks of Himself as the
Bread of Life, and adds, "He that cometh to Me shall
never hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never
thirst." And He further says, " The bread which 1 will
give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the
world." And when the Jews strove one with another,
saying, " How can this Man give us His flesh to eat ? "
Jesus said, " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man,
1 Exod. xxiv. 8. 2 John vi.

Lect. V.] IN THE SACRAMENTS 117

and drink His blood, ye have not life in yourselves. He
that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal
life ; and I will raise him up at the last day. For My
flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed."

If we accept both the discourse in St. John and the
synoptic narrative of the Supper as authentic, it is
impossible to suppose that they are not in some way
related to each other. If Christ spoke of eating His
flesh and drinking His blood as a necessity of the
spiritual life, and afterwards, at a solemn moment of
His life, said, " Take, eat, this is My body ; and drink
ye all of this, for this is My blood," it seems plain that
the one utterance could not have been made without
reference to the other, and we may reasonably suppose
that the one is to be interpreted by the other. But the
important question is, which is to be interpreted by the
other ? Are we to say that the discourse at Capernaum
was a dark saying, of which the disciples were not
intended to understand the meaning until it was made
clear by the words and acts of the Paschal Supper, or
was Christ in the discourse laying down a great spiritual
truth, which, if the disciples had received it into their
minds and understandings, would have enabled them at
once to recognize His meaning in the institution of the
Eucharist ?

Let us look more closely at the words of the discourse
in John vi.

Our Lord saw that the multitude who had followed
Him across the lake were actuated by no higher motive
than a desire to get what He might be able and willing

n8 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V.

to bestow ; and so He exhorts them to work, not for the
meat which perisheth, but for the meat which abideth
unto everlasting life. The mention of work led them
to suppose that some efforts of their own could obtain
the gift He spoke of; and they asked, "What must we
do that we may work the works of God ? " He tells
them that it is not a question of working, but of believ-
ing : " This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him
Whom He hath sent." And when they asked for a
sign, and spoke of the manna which Moses had given
the people from heaven, He declared, " It was not Moses
that gave you the bread out of heaven ; but My Father
giveth you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread
of God is that which cometh down out of heaven and
giveth life unto the world." And he added, " I am the
bread of life : he that cometh to Me shall not hunger ;
and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst."

So far there is little difficulty in understanding the
general meaning. The people were following Him from
a low, carnal motive ; they desired such food as Moses
had brought out of heaven. But Christ's object was not
to satisfy their bodily hunger, nor yet to impress their
imagination by wonderful works, but to supply their
spiritual needs. Accordingly, just as He had spoken to
the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well of living water
springing up within a man unto everlasting life, so here
he tries to raise the thoughts and desires of the people
to a higher and more spiritual level by speaking of Him-
self as the bread of life. What they really needed was
nourishment for their spiritual life ; and that nourishment

Lect. v.] IN THE SACRAMENTS 119

they could receive by believing on Him, the Hying
bread, Who had life in Himself, Who had come that
they might have life, and have it more abundantly.
But, after this, a new scene seems to open. The Jews —
no longer the multitude, but the Jews, "the representa-
tives of the dominant religious party " 1 — " murmured
concerning Him because He said, I am the bread
which came down out of heaven." And, after repeating
His previous declaration that He is the bread of life, He
tells them that the bread which He will give is His flesh,
which He will give for the life of the world. Here, with
the word " flesh " comes in for the first time the sug-
gestion of His death. And then He speaks of eating
His flesh and drinking His blood as the condition of
having eternal life. Here, surely, is a declaration that
it is by receiving Him, His life-giving Spirit, into them-
selves, by being made conformable to His death, that
they can be nourished to life eternal. Does He give
any hint that this is a mystery which would not be
made known to them till long afterwards, when He
would be about to leave them ? Far from it. He speaks
of the present. " He that eateth My flesh and drinketh
My blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up
[will perfect him] at the last day." And, as though to
meet and obviate any gross and carnal understanding of
His words, when His disciples complained, " This is a
bard saying ; who can hear it ? " He said, " It is the spirit
that quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth nothing : the words
that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life."
1 Westcott on St. John, p. 104.

120 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V.

There are, as I have said, two possible lines of inter-
pretation of this great passage. If we say that it refers
to the sacramental feeding on Christ's body and blood in
the Eucharist, and that our Lord was speaking by antici-
pation of a rite which He intended to institute, probably
a year later, we are substituting the letter for the spirit,
the outward for the inward. In the weighty words of
Dr. Westcott, " The teaching . . . treats essentially of
spiritual realities, with which no external act, as such,
can be co-extensive. ... To attempt to transfer the
words of the discourse with their consequences to the
Sacrament is not only to involve the history in hopeless
confusion, but to introduce overwhelming difficulties into
their interpretation." On the other hand, the spiritual
reference of the passage is well brought out in the well-
known words of St. Augustine, " Believe and thou hast
eaten ; " and in those of St. Bernard, " To eat His flesh
and drink His blood, what is it but to be partakers of His
sufferings and to imitate His conversation which He
had in the flesh ? " Indeed, the relation of the Sacra-
ment to the discourse cannot be more tersely expressed
than in the words of St. Augustine in reference to Christ
as the bread which came down from heaven : 1 " Hunc

1 Aug., in Joh. Evan., xxvi. § 12. In the text of the
Benedictine edition the words are " Hunc panern significavit Altare
Dei." But in a note we read, " MSS. plerique significat." The
perfect tense would make it refer to the Jewish Altar. But
" Altare Dei " is Augustine's familiar title for the Christian Altar,
and the change of tense is one which the monkish copyist would
be likely to make, lest St. Augustine should seem to speak of the
Eucharist as signifying and not being the Bread of Life.

In connexion with Augustine's "view of the Eucharist, there

Lect. V.] IN THE SACRAMENTS 121

3anem significavit manna, hunc panem significat altare
Dei." The discourse and the Sacrament alike have
•eference to the same spiritual reality, the inward feeding
m Christ by faith, the receiving nourishment and
strength from Him, the transfusion of His Spirit into us.
To find in the discourse an exposition of the doctrine
)f the Sacrament is — in the words of Meyer — an unex-
ampled and inconceivable vo-repov vporepov. The earlier
christian writers no doubt apply the phraseology of
the discourse to the Eucharist : but it is remarkable
that, while using the strongest possible language, lan-
guage sometimes overstepping the limits of sober rever-
ence, of the eating and drinking of the body and blood
)f Christ in the Sacrament, thej r yet seem always con-
scious that it is figurative language that they are using.
Drigen applies St. Paul's words about the letter and the
spirit to this subject. 1 "There is," he says, "in the
jospels too a letter, which kills him who understands not
spiritually the things which are spoken. For if thou
? ollowest out according to the letter this very saying,
: Except ye eat My flesh and drink My blood,' this letter

s a curious story in his third book " Contra Julianuni," how one
Icatius, a contemporary of his own, had been born with his
:yes closed, and how, when he was five years old, his mother had
uceeeded in opening them, imposito ex Eucharislia cataplasmate. It
e difficult to understand this of anything but the consecrated bread
if the Eucharist ; but if so, it implies a view of the Sacrament
ingularly remote from any modern theory.

1 " Est enim et in evangeliis littera, quae occidit eum, qui non
piritaliter, quae dicimtur, adverterit. Si enim secundum litteram
equaris hoc ipsum, quod dictum est : Nisi manducaveritis camera
aeam et biberitis sanguinem meum, occidit hseo littera." — Horn,
'iii. 5, in Lev.

122 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V.

killeth." And St. Augustine warns us to honour the
Sacraments, not in slavishness of the flesh, but in free-
dom of the spirit. And to take the sign for the thing
signified he 1 calls a mark of " servilis infirmitas."

It is strange how largely the letter has superseded
the spirit in the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. Selden's
pithy saying of the doctrine of tran substantiation, 2
"That opinion is only Ehetoric turned into Logic," con-
tains briefly the history of sacramental dogma. " With-
out a parable spake He not unto them" is the Evangelist's
account of our Lord's teaching to the multitude. And
the one Evangelist who gives us no parables properly so
called, records a number of parabolic sayings which we
must take into account if we would understand His
method. " I am the Door ; " "I am the Good Shepherd ; "
" I am the Vine ; " "I am the Bread of Life ; " — all these
sayings set forth Christ in His relation to His people
under various aspects. They show how natural it was
to Him to use the things of sense for expressing spiritual
truths. And the image of eating and drinking, of
inwardly digesting, was a very familiar one to his
hearers. " Come, eat of My bread, and drink of the
wine which I have mingled," is the invitation of
Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs. But in the case of the
Eucharist there is a further and a deeper significance.
For Christ goes on to say, " The bread which I will give
is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."
He was indeed a Teacher sent from God, and if He had

1 Aug., De Doct. Christ., nr. 9.

2 Selden's " Table Talk."

,fxt. V.] IN THE SACRAMENTS 123

dd simply, " I am tlie bread of life," we should have
ccepted it as a claim that we should receive and
ssimilate His doctrine ; but when He speaks of giving
lis flesh for the life of the world, it is clear that He
ioints to His Incarnation and Sacrifice as the life-giving
Dod of His people. So far, then, it is quite true that
be discourse at Capernaum contained a mystery which
he hearers could not yet fully comprehend. But the
aain point is, that the discourse was not a prophecy of
he Lord's Supper, but the Supper was the precipitating
,nd fixing in visible and tangible signs of that which
jhrist had already given as a spiritual revelation to His
isciples.

That He should thus have embodied the relation
ietween Himself and His people in a visible action is a
ignal proof of His insight into human nature. Not
nly because —

"Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem,
Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus ; "

■ut also because an institution or an observance gathers
ound itself a history of its own, and gives fresh signifi-
ance and vitality to the doctrine which it enshrines,
n truth, the history of the Eucharist would be to a
reat extent a history of the inner life of Christendom,
t has influenced, and in its turn been influenced by,
le course of Church life. In the New Testament we
nd it in its primitive simplicity : at Troas, the midnight
jlebration in the upper chamber ; at Corinth, the Lord's
upper and the Love-feast almost indistinguishably
lehded. But soon new elements appear : we see the

i2 4 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V.

separation of the Communion from the Love-feast ; the
transition from the late evening to the early morning ;
the development of the idea of sacrifice — first the thank-
offering of the fruits of the earth, then the offering of
themselves by the people as a reasonable, holy, and
lively sacrifice ; then the solemn commemoration of the
sacrifice of Christ ; and finally the propitiatory sacrifice
of the Mass : we see the growth of the idea of com-
munion, first with the persons present signified by the
kiss of peace, then with absent brethren, then with the
dead, and the mention by name of departed saints :
parallel with this, the growth of the sacerdotal aspect of
the Sacrament, so that it is no longer The bread which
we the Christian congregation, but The bread which we
the Priests break ; the change from the primitive
Basilica arrangement, in which the Bishop, descending
from his throne at the eastern extremity of the Church,
stood behind the Holy Table with his face towards the
people ; the development of the simple apsidal termina-
tion into the deep chancel and the elaborate sanctuary,
so that the very architecture of our mediaeval churches
bears testimony to the changed aspect of the worship
for which they were built : we see the whole institution
gradually transformed from the simple act of communion
with Christ and with His people into a gorgeous pageant,
an awful mystery, the worship of Christ present on the
Altar. But through all it has been a perpetual memory
of the sacrifice of the death of Christ ; under the
utmost variety of forms it has shown forth the Lord's
death. And when the Reformation came, and with it

Lect. V.] IN THE SACRAMENTS 125

the restoration of the simpler and purer idea of
Christian worship, the Eucharist reverted in the Pro-
testant Churches to something like its earlier type, and
the Mass gave way to the Communion, and the spirit
once more asserted itself as superior to the letter.

It may at first seem startling, when we discover
that the great central usage of Christianity, that which
our Lord appointed to be observed in memory of Him
until His comino- again, should have so varied from age
to age, and that it should have been made the central
position of the battle of the Eeformation. It is startling,
if we think chiefly of the outward form, and not of the
inward spirit. But we must remember that the con-
dition on which an observance exists is that it should so
adapt itself as to be intelligible to and in contact with
the inner life of varying generations ; and that the
simple coming together of the brethren to break bread,
natural and expressive as it was to men accustomed to
the social life of the synagogue, could hardly supersede
the more sensuous worship of the Greek, the Roman,
and the Teuton, until it had drawn to itself something
of the element of awe and mystery. We know how
even at Corinth the Holy Feast was made a scene of
revelry and excess ; probably in a ruder age and
country it was necessary to sacrifice altogether the
social in order to preserve the religious aspect of the
Sacrament. It is of the very essence of Christianity
that forms are non-essential and variable ; even Sacra-
ments ordained by Christ have preserved their spirit
only by modification of the letter. And this being so,

iz6 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V.

it becomes a question of deep importance, What is to
be the relation of the Eucharist to the changing social
conditions of the present age ?

If we watch the signs of the times, we cannot
doubt that the great social idea which this age is
destined to carry out is that of the solidarity of man-
kind. The motto of the French Eevolution, " Freedom,
Equality, Brotherhood," though its brightness was
quenched in clouds of war and despotism, was yet a
true expression of the need of the age. It is in this
direction, if at all, that humanity must advance. And
if the Christian Church has no message to deliver on
this matter, we cannot wonder if men ignore her, and
turn for help to other teachers. If, indeed, Christianity
had been, as some of its advocates have tried to make
it, a religion of the letter, — if, that is to say, it had been
tied down to a certain set of political dogmas, or had
been the advocate of aristocracy against democracy, of
privilege against equality, it would by this time have
been a mere survival, waxing' old and ready to vanish
away. It is true that the Church has not always risen
to the height of her Divine Charter, and has sometimes
timidly sought the alliance of this or that political
party, and has shrunk from adapting herself to new
social conditions and to the needs of new classes. And
where she has thus fallen short of her possibilities, she
has learnt by bitter experience to rue her mistake. But
all the time in her great central Ordinance she has had
within her the corrective to her timidity. In the
Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ she has

Lect. V.] IN THE SACRAMENTS 127

the outward expression of her Lord's words, " One is
your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren."
And whatever other and more mysterious significance
this Sacrament may have for individual believers, we
can hardly doubt that for the Church at large this is
what needs most to be insisted on. What is wanted in
our perplexed and distracted age is, a simple faith in
Christ as the Teacher, the Guide, the Saviour of man-
kind, and a true sense of brotherhood among all classes
and conditions of men. It is true that a large and
influential section of the Christian Church insists
upon the literal and (if I may say so without
offence) the carnal view of the Eucharist as an
essential article of the Christian faith. That the
validity of each Eucharist depends on the right
transmission of Apostolic orders through the Episcopate
to the celebrating Priest; that when a rightly ordained
Priest pronounces the words of Consecration, Christ
becomes then and there present on the Altar ; that the
virtue of His Incarnation is conveyed to the com-
municants in and through the bread and wine, and that
the bread may be rightly called the Body, and the wine
the Blood of Christ ; — these are doctrines consistent, no
doubt, with the letter of Christ's words, " This is My
Body, This is My Blood of the New Covenant," but
hardly consistent with the spirit of His teaching. And
be it remembered that in this matter we are shut
up to the direct declarations of the Lord Himself. No
ecclesiastical tradition, no -decrees of councils, can have
any weight in a question which depends wholly on the

128 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V.

intention of the original institution. And He Himself
has told us that the flesh profiteth nothing, and that it
is the spirit that giveth life. He Himself has told us
that it is not in physical nearness to Him, but in hearing
the AVord of God and keeping it, that true blessedness
consists. He Himself has told us that it is expedient
for us that His bodily presence should be withdrawn, in
order that His spiritual presence may be with us. And
that presence is not dependent on or confined to any
outward rite or any material elements ; it is a presence
which is with us always, and the Sacrament is but the
concentrating and expressing in outward form that real
Presence, which pervades the Christian life. In the
words of Cranmer, " The presence of Christ in His Holy
Supper is a spiritual presence ; and as He is spiritually
present, so is He spiritually eaten of all faithful Christian
men, not only when they receive the Sacrament, but
continually, so long as they be members spiritual of
Christ's mystical body. . . . And as the Holy Ghost
doth not only come to us in Baptism, and Christ doth
there clothe us, but They do the same to us continually
so long as we dwell in Christ ; so likewise doth Christ
feed us so long as we dwell in Him and He in us, and
not only when we receive the Sacrament." *

We ask, then, what is that permanent essential
element in the Eucharist, which underlies all varieties
of outward form and all differences of dogmatic view,
and which may be called its Catholic character ? It is
the expression, first, of that absolute spiritual union with
1 Cranmer's Works, ed. Jenkyns, vol. iii., p. 131.

Lect. V.] IN THE SACRAMENTS 129

Christ in which true cliscipleship consists ; secondly, of
that brotherly union with our fellow-men, of which the
common partaking of the same food is so natural and
universal a symbol ; thirdly, of that spirit of sacrifice
which found its perfect and eternal expression in the
Sacrifice of the Cross ; fourthly, of the looking forward
to that new and better world which Christ indicated
when He spoke of drinking new wine with His disciples
in the kingdom of God. If we thus regard the Holy
Communion, we can afford to pass by all metaphysical
theories of the manner of Christ's presence as simply
unmeaning and nugatory. For indeed, even if our
Lord and Saviour were in any local sense present in the
elements, what would such a presence profit us ? If we
should say, "Blessed are the eyes which see Thee, the
hands which handle Thee, the lips which receive Thee, in
the Sacrament of Thy Body and Blood," surely He would
reply as He did of old, "Yea rather, blessed are they that
hear the word of Cod and keep it." And let us not fear
lest in accepting the simpler and more spiritual aspect
of the Sacrament we lose any of its true value. We
need not lay aside anything of our reverence for Christ's
presence because we do not direct that reverence to the
material symbols of His presence ; we need not shrink
from using the strong language of the ancient hymn —

"Ecce panis angelorum,
Factus cibus viatorum,
Vere panis filiorum,"

if we adopt also the language of St. Augustine : * " Fi-
1 Aug., De Doct. Christ., in. 16.

K

130 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. V.

gura est, prsecipiens passioni Dominicae communicandum
et suaviter atque utiliter recolendum in memoria quod
pro nobis caro ejus crucifixa et vulnerata sit." It is
true that, as in the case of Scripture so in the case of
the Sacraments, even the superstitious, even the carnal
use of them lias quickened and nourished many a
Christian soul ; but no less have Christian souls been
quickened and nourished by the simplest remembrance
of Christ's death, by the simplest act of communion and
fellowship.

" The H0I3' Supper is kept indeed,
In whatso we share with another's need." 1

Not only in solemn seasons of worship, not only in
venerable sanctuaries, but at all times and in all places
do Christ's words hold good, " I am the Bread of Life ;
he that cometh to Me shall not hunger, and he that
believeth on Me shall never thirst."

1 Lowell, " The Vision of Sir Launfal."

LECTURE VT.

IN CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS OF FAITH.

" We serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the
letter."— Rom. vii. 6 (E.V.).

" It is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is the
truth."— 1 John v. 7 (E.V.).

Our subject to-day is, The Letter and the Spirit in
relation to Christian Creeds and Confessions of Faith.

Before entering upon this subject, it will be well to
consider shortly, What do we mean by religion ? A
man's religion is usually understood to mean that out-
ward profession of faith and those outward observances
by which he is united to those who, by a modern
barbarism, are called his co-religionists, and is separated
from others. And the tendency since the Eeformation
has undoubtedly been, to make religion more a badge
of separation than a basis of union. But in our day
this subject has begun to present itself in a new light.
As the science of language has taught us to see affinities
where, until recently, men only saw diversities, so the
science of religion — a science which, as yet, professes to
be only in its infancy — is teaching us that beneath all
the outward manifestations of religion lies that which

132 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VI.

is anterior to all religions, the faculty of aspiring and
yearning after the Infinite. Not, indeed, that the
recognition of this faculty is a new thing ; it is what
St. Paul expressed in his speech on the Areopagus, when
he said that God had made men dependent on Him
that they might seek for God, if haply they might feel
after Him and find Him ; it is what the Psalmist meant
when he said, " Such knowledge is too wonderful for
me ; I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from
Thy Spirit ? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence ? "
But it is only now that men are beginning to acknow-
ledge that a true and unhesitating faith in Christ is not
incompatible with the belief that, as in the material so
in the spiritual world, God is always and everywhere at
work, and that men who, in whatever age and under
whatever variety of form, have reared altars to an
unknown God, have ignorantly worshipped Him Who
made the world and all things therein, the Lord of
heaven and earth. Certainly we who believe that God
has given us eternal life in His Son, need not shrink
from acknowledging that He has revealed Himself 7roXu-
pepcos Kal TroXvTpoTrcos to men who —

" Stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what they feel is Lord of all ; " 1

that Christ is the Son of Man in this sense too, that to
Him all the inarticulate yearnings, all the half-conscious
questionings of mankind point ; that all the thoughts
of men about what is higher than themselves, so far as
1 Tennyson, " In Memoriam."

Lect. VI.] IN CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS OF FAITH 133

they were not mere perversions and reflections from the
light of their own fire, and from the sparks which they
have kindled, find their interpretation in Him in Whom
are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

It is well that this aspect of the subject should not
be overlooked in Oxford. In years gone by, theology
was regarded as the queen of sciences — " omnium dis-
ciplinarum suprema et dignissima." 1 If she is ever to
reconquer her position, it must be by claiming a wider
territory, by interpreting the meaning of all those varied
forms under which men have vaguely guessed at the
Infinite, of all those faint visions which they have had
of that eternal and invisible world which was above
them and about them and within them. As it is
impossible to understand Christianity without the aid
of Judaism, so it is impossible adequately to comprehend
the spirit of religion without the study of those great
Eastern beliefs which have influenced so vast a pro-
portion of the human race, nay without some knowledge
of those ruder guesses at the great enigma which simpler
races have made in the childhood of the world. It has
been often pointed out, that for missionaries the very
first step in their preparation should be a candid and
sympathetic study of the religious beliefs of those to
whom they are to be sent, and that they should
approach those beliefs in the spirit of our Lord's words,
" I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." But surely
for all religious teachers and inquirers it would be a
great gain that they should be interested in other
1 Sanderson, "Logic."

134 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VI.

departments of religious thought besides their own, and
that they should learn St. Augustine's lesson, 1 that a
true Christian must understand that truth belongs to
his Master wherever he finds it. We are all too apt to
think that the Word of God came to us only. We
forget that, if ours is, as we profess, the Catholic
religion, it must gather up as it were into one focus all
the scattered rays of light which come down from the
Father of lights, and that the pure and colourless light
is that which is composed of many blended rays.

And moreover the scieuce of religion teaches us
that theology is not a deductive and stationary, but an
inductive and progressive science. The prevalent con-
ception of theology has been that of a stately temple,
of which the ground-plan has been laid clown from the
beginning, and which has been built up gradually by
succeeding generations, each adding something in its
own special style, yet all so as to harmonize with the
general design. And where any reconstruction has been
found necessary, it has been because the builders have
deserted the original foundation, or have built hastily
or with bad materials. But would it not be a truer and
a grander figure to speak of theology as an organism, a
living body, growing and expanding according to the
law of its being, shedding from time to time such rudi-
mentary parts as were not needed for its maturer
functions, adapting itself to its changing environment,

1 "De Doot. Christ.," ii. 18 : " Quisquis bonus verusque Christi-
an us est, Domini sui esse intelligat ubique [? ubicunque] invenerit
veritatem."

Lect. VI.] IN CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS OF FAITH 1 3 5

preserving its identity, not by the rigid uniformity of
inanimate matter, but by the ever-fresh growth and
development of organic life ? Are not the conditions of
all knowledge such, that the goal of one age is the
starting-point of another ; that what seemed to one
generation final and perfect is seen by another to be but
partial and provisional, and that the claim of finality is,
in fact, an acknowledgment of sterility ? All human
knowledge, even of things Divine, is imperfect, and there-
fore capable of progress ; and progress involves not only
the acceptance of the new, but also the reconsideration
and possible reconstruction of the old.

" Man therefore, thus conditioned, must expect
He could not, what he knows now, know at first ;
What he considers that he knows to-day,
Come hut to-morrow, he will find misknown ;
Getting increase of knowledge, since he learns
Because he lives, which is to be a man,
Set to instruct himself by his past self.

*****
God's gift was that man should conceive of truth,
And yearn to gain it, catching at mistake,
As midway help till he reach fact indeed.
The statuary, ere he mould a shape,
Boasts a like gift, the shape's idea, and next
The aspiration to produce the same ;
So, taking clay, he calls his shape thereout,
Cries ever, ' Now I have the thing I see ; '
Yet all the while goes changing what was wrought,
From falsehood like the truth, to truth itself." *

We turn, then, to the subject of the Letter and the
Spirit in relation to creeds and confessions of faith.

I have already had occasion to remark upon the fact,
1 Browning, " A Death in the Desert."

136 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VI.

that the earliest Christians not only possessed no sacred
writings of their own, but could not even have conceived
the possibility of such writings springing up. To them,
the end seemed very near ; what need could there be of
written records for a generation which had seen the
Lord when He was on earth, and which hoped to see
Him again, coming in the clouds of heaven ?

And if there was no need of written records, still
less, surely, of formal statements of belief. Why profess
a belief in God the Father Almighty, when in seeing
Christ they had seen the Father ? Why confess that
Jesus Christ His only Son had been born, had suffered,
had died, had risen again, had gone up into heaven,
when they themselves were eye-witnesses of these
things ? Why say that they believed in the Holy
Spirit, when they saw the work of the Spirit everywhere
around them, and heard His voice in their hearts 1 It
was superfluous to profess belief in that which they had
seen and heard, which they had looked upon and their
hands had handled. But the case was different with
regard to the reception of new members into the
Christian society. Here the traditional formula of
admission was itself the framework of a confession of
faith ; and it was obviously nugatory to admit persons
into the Church without some formal assurance that they
believed on the Name into which they were baptized.
An early writer describes Baptism thus : * " Thou wast
asked, ' Dost thou believe in God the Father Almighty?'

1 Pseud. Ambros., " De Saoiamentis," bk. ii., c. 7. Quoted in
Smith's " Diet, of Eccl. Antiq.," i. 490.

Lect. VI] IN CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS OF FAITH 1 3 7

Thou saidst, ' I believe,' and thou wast immersed. Again
thou wast asked, ' Dost thou believe also in our Lord
Jesus Christ and His Cross 1 ' Thou saidst again, ' I
believe,' and wast immersed. A third time thou wast
asked, ' Dost thou believe in the Holy Spirit ? ' Thou
didst reply, 'I believe,' and a third time thou wast
immersed." Here we have the Baptismal formula
expanded into a creed. It is not till the sixth century l
that we find clear evidence of creeds being used in public
worship, and then — as we might expect — it is at the
celebration of the Eucharist, as a proof that those who
had made profession of their faith at their Baptism con-
tinued in it grounded and settled. The practice of
using the creed in public worship seems to have arisen
in the East, as indeed we might infer from the fact that
it is the Eastern form of creed that we now recite in the
Communion Service.

But gradually creeds and confessions of faith assumed
another aspect. As controversies arose, many of them
on vital points, it was natural that councils should be
held to determine what was the belief of the Church ;
and the decisions of such councils were of necessity
formulated as authentic records. So that confessions
of faith became no longer the simple formulas in which
admission to the Christian Church was sought or ad-
herence to the faith professed ; they bear the marks
of keen discussion, and almost every word of them is
molten in the fire of controversy. At the Keformation,

1 Not till the Third Council of To'edo, a.d. 589. Cf. Lumby's
"Hist, of Creeds," p. 101.

138 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VI.

the same tendency to precise definition of doctrine pre-
vailed ; but now, confessions and articles of religion,
instead of being professedly the embodiment of the
faith of the Church at large, became the distinctive
symbols of particular communions : and the Helvetic,
the Augsburg, the Saxon, the Belgic Confession, the
English Thirty-nine Articles, and the Tridentine Pro-
fession of Faith, each, indeed, claim to embody the true
faith, but each putting it in the special form in which
the particular Church held it ; so that we hear no longer
of the doctrine of the Church at large, but of the doctrine
of the Church of Rome, of the Church of Erjgland, of the
Church of Geneva, and so forth. So that we seem to
recognize three distinct stages in the history of creeds :
the first, when they express the faith of individuals as
claiming membership in the Church ; the second, when
they express the faith which the Church universal imposes
on individuals ; the third, when they serve to mark what
is distinctive in a particular Church, and are intended to
express what " this Church and realm hath received."

I pointed out in a former lecture that the view which
regarded Scripture as a complete and systematic revela-
tion, of equal authority in all its parts, led naturally to
the use of it as a religious text-book, from which were
drawn the axioms of Christian theology. According
to this view, when the text of Scripture has been
adequately expounded, no farther advance would be
possible in religious knowledge ; all that would remain
would be to defend the faith against attacks. And,
accordingly, we find that each successive statement of

jsct.VI.] IN CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS OF FAITH 139

he faith was looked on as final. The Council of
3phesus forbade any addition to the original Nicene
symbol. 1 The so-called creed of St. Athanasius declares
'Hsec est fides Catholica." The declaration of King
lames, prefixed to the Thirty-nine Articles, lays down
'That if any Divine in the Universities shall preach
)r print anything either way, other than is already
established in Convocation with Our Royal Assent, the
Offenders shall be liable to Our displeasure and the
Uhurch's censure." And the Welsh Calvinistic Metho-
lists append to their formulary of faith the words, " No
ilteration in these tenets of Doctrines shall be at any
ime allowed or even discussed." 2

And yet, do what we will, no such finality is attain-
tble. Indeed, we cannot without an effort realize under
,vhat very various aspects even fundamental doc-
Tines have been regarded at different stages of the
Church's life. Take, for example, the doctrine of the
■elation of the death of Christ to the Christian. Be-
;inning from the simple statement of Christ Himself,
hat He came to give His life a ransom for many,
hat the Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep,
ve have the further statement of St. Paul, that we are
ustified by Christ's Blood ; of St. Peter, that He carried
rp our sins in His own Body to the tree ; of the Epistle
the Hebrews, that He was once offered to bear the sins

1 Eishops and clergy framing or propounding any other creed
■apa 1-771/ bpicrOtio-av irapa tu>v ayitav irarepoyv were deposed, and
aymen anathematized. Cf. Smith's "Diet, of Eccl. Ant.," i. 615 ;
jumby's " Hist, of Creeds," p. 76.

2 "Constit. Deed," Aug. 10, 182 6.

140 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VI.

of many. But men were not content without more pre-
cise and formal definition ; and the idea of a ransom
was expanded into that of a price paid ; but to whom \
To Satan, was the first answer, by whom we had been
taken captive, and whom Christ beguiled for our deliver-
ance. To God, was the second answer, Who, by reason
of our debts, had claims upon us which no less price
could discharge. From this answer arose the theory of
the schoolmen as formulated by Anselm, 1 that man's sin
had robbed God of the honour due to Him ; that it was
impossible, God being what He is, that this should
remain so ; that the sinner must make satisfaction to
God, or undergo the penalty of his sin ; that Christ,
having made, as He alone could make, a voluntary
offering in His death, had made a full satisfaction for
man's sin. But beyond this rose the further theory of
Calvinistic Protestantism, that Christ underwent the
accumulated punishment of man's sin, and endured in
his stead the pains of Hell to satisfy the Father's justice ; 2
a view which we are surprised to find even in Bishop
Heber's hymn —

" For us He gave His Blood to flow,
And met His Father's anger."

1 "Cur Deus Homo," i., c. 13: "Nihil minus tolerandum est
in rerum ordine, quam lit creatura creatori debitum honorem
auferat, et non solvat, quod aufert. . . . Necesse est ergo, ut aut
ablatus honor solvatur, aut poena sequatur."

2 Gerhard, loc. " Theol.," xvii. 2, c. 54. Quoted by Hagenbach,
"Dogmengeschichte." — "Quomodo a maledicto legis nos redemisset,
factus pro nobis maledictum, nisi judicium Dei irati persensisset?"
The Heidelberg Catechism maintains that Christ bore the wrath
of God during all His earthly life.

ect.VL] IN CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS OF FAITH 141

nd if we ask what is the view of the atonement that
itisfi.es the religious instinct of the present day, the
jply will probably be that modern religion tends to
igard it as the great expression at once of the righteous-
ess and of the love of God.

I have taken this instance of the doctrine of the
tonement, because it is clear that in this crucial case
f what is usually regarded as the central truth of
Ihristianity, there has been a development, an onward
lovement in the views of Christian thinkers, and that
lie view of one age did not adequately meet the needs
f another. The theory of the development of Christian
octrine, which came upon the world forty-six years ago
?ith the shock of novelty, and which was then put
Drward in defence of dogmas which their opponents
hallenged as being not primitive, has since then been
dtnitted with whatever modifications by almost all who
ave thought about the matter. In this respect, as in
thers, we find that God's ways are not our ways. We
tart with a preconceived notion that truth was revealed
nee for all in its completeness. But we find that He
oes not make His truth known to us in a series of
'repositions, but in a Living Spirit : by that Spirit He
eaches the hearts of His people, and leads them on into
ver fresh knowledge of Him. And thus we learn that
he first requisite for a theologian is to have an open
lincl ; to be ready to hear G od's Voice speaking to him,
ot in Scripture only, but in the developments of history,
1 the movements of human thought, in the revelations
f science ; to say always, " Speak, Lord, for Thy servant

i42 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VI.

heareth." It is true that there is such a thing as "the
faith once for all delivered to the saints ; " but it is also
true that that faith is not a dead but a living thing, not
of the letter, but of the spirit. And, being so, it needs
to be spiritually apprehended : it cannot be precipitated
into a final and unalterable form, but it must be capable
of growth and modification and development. The
history of Christian doctrine, a thing hardly conceived
of before this century, has now been admitted as an
important branch of Church history. And if once we
admit that doctrine has a history, it is clear that con-
fessions of faith, which used to be regarded as final
expositions of religious truth, are after all to be looked
upon rather as historical monuments, marking the level
of Christian thought at a given time, than as the moulds
by which religious faith is to be shaped in all ages. So
far, indeed, as they are simply the statement of the
historic basis of the faith, the confession of such belief
as justifies a claim to the Christian name, so far as they
are but the legitimate expansion of the baptismal
formula, so far creeds may be regarded, first as tesserce,
or badges of Christian profession, and, secondly, as
triumphant hymns of faith ; as acts of allegiance to
Christ, and as the expression of the unity of all who
believe in Him. In this sense, creeds are part of the
heritage of the universal Church, witnesses of the unity
of Christians, even of those who do not express their
belief in the traditional forms. But as soon as a con-
fession of faith is used as a symbol, not of unity, but of
division, — as soon as its terms are calculated, not for

ect.VL] IN CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS OF FAITH 143

3mprehension, but for exclusion, — it is marked as being
f a temporary character ; it may express adequately the
jligious thought of the generation which evolves it,
ut it is not — it does not profess to be — Catholic, it
ims at formulating, not the truth simply, but that
spect of the truth which commends itself to a particular
ge or nation. Indeed, the further we go back towards
Lpostolic days, the more do we find that the earliest
tatements of Christian faith were simply the rehearsal
f the elementary facts of which the Apostles were
ritnesses. What was the 7rapaSocn,s — the tradition
shich St. Paul delivered to the Corinthian Church ? —
low that Christ died for our sins according to the
Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose
gain according to the Scriptures. Almost equally
imple and elementary are the creeds, or rudiments of
needs, which we find in the writings of Ireneeus, of
[ertullian, of Cyprian. On the other hand, in the
}uincunque vult, whatever its date and whatever its
uthorship, we seem to have arrived at the ultimate
tage of minute metaphysical definition. So that we
nay distinguish four successive stages in the develop-
nent of creeds and formulas of belief : first, the simple
tatement of belief in God the Father, and in Jesus
Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Spirit ; then,
:ertain elementary doctrines involved in this belief — the
Catholic Church, the remission of sins, the resurrection,
-nd the life everlasting ; thirdly, elaborate metaphysical
logmas as to the nature of the Godhead ; and finally,
nferences as to the relations of God and man, taking

144 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VI.

shape in the doctrines of predestination, justification,
grace, the sacraments, and the like. In the presence of
such phenomena, we are obliged to inquire, What is
the true object of creeds, and how may that object best
be attained 1

We must not allow ourselves to forget the original
connection of the creed with Baptism. The reply of
Philip the Deacon to the Ethiopian Eunuch when he pro-
posed to be baptized at once — " If thou believest with
all thy heart thou mayest ; " and the Eunuch's confession
■ — " I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God," — is
indeed acknowledged to be an interpolation ; but it
expresses exactly the view of the early Church with
reference to Baptism. The earliest function of the
creed, the only function that it performed in the primi-
tive Church, was to be the expression of the unity of all
who professed and called themselves Christians. The
use of the plural number — "We believe " — in the Eastern
forms of creed, the prohibition to reduce the creed to
writing lest it should be communicated to those who
were not yet Christians, 1 the restriction of its use to
Baptism and the Eucharist, all point to the fact that the

1 Cf. Aug., Serm. 212 : " Nee ut eadem verba symboli
teneatis ullo modo debetis scribere, Bed audiendo perdiscere, nee
cum didiceritis scribere, sed memoria semper tenere atque
recolere." He gives as the reason for this prohibition the Divine
promise, "I will put Sly law in their inward parts, and in their
heart will I write it." "Hujus rei significandae causa audiendo
symbolum discitur, nee in tabulis, vel in aliqua materia, sed in
corde soribitur." But it is probable that the real reason was the
fear of profanation. Cyprian applies to the creed the words, " Give
not that which is holy to the dogs," etc.

Lect.VI.] IN CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS OF FAITH 145

only distinction marked by the creed was the distinction
between Christians and those who, whether as Jews or
heathen, were outside the Church. Its ground-tone was
comprehension, not exclusion. And this is an important
point to notice. For it makes a very great difference
whether we regard the Catholic Church as a number of
individuals who have associated themselves together
because they hold the same views on certain matters of
theological opinion, or as a great society united together
not by identity of opinion but by a living faith in a
common Father and in obedience to a common Master.
And as soon as confessions of faith are constructed with
a view to exclusion and not to comprehension, they at
once change their character, and become instruments of
closing instead of opening the door of admission to
Christian communion. We cannot find, a better illustra-
tion of this change in the character of confessions of
faith than in contrasting the Apostles' and the Nicene
Creeds, on the one hand, with the Quicunque vult on the
other. In the earlier creeds there is but one negative —
"Begotten, not made;" in the later there are twenty-
one ; the object of the former being mainly to affirm
positive truth, that of the latter to deny and to anathe-
matize error. And. whereas the earlier creeds, with the
exception of a few clauses in the Nicene, are confined to
historic statements or the simplest deductions from them,
the later one revels in the minutest metaphysical dis-
tinctions, and seems to aim at arriving by an exhaustive
process at a complete definition of God. It does not fall
within the subject of this lecture to discuss the question

L

146 THE LETTER AND THE SFIRIT [Lf.ct. VI.

of the position of the so-called Athanasian Creed among
the formularies of the English Church, except to remark
that as an act of public worship it seems to savour rather
of the letter than of the spirit, and that if regarded as a
hymn (and an ancient title calls it the Psalm Quicunque
vult *), it is singularly lacking in that element of emotion
which is indispensable in a Christian hymn. It is true
that the use of creeds in the worship of the Church
suggests that they should be regarded rather after the
spirit than after the letter ; in the words of Dr. Arnold,
" Not as reviving the memory of old disputes, and a
sort of declaration of war against those who may not
agree with us in them, but as principally a free and
triumphant expression of thanksgiving to God for all
the mighty works which He has done for us." 2 But in
the case of the Quicunque vult the difficulty is that its
letter is, to ordinary worshippers, unintelligible and even
misleading, and that its spirit is scarcely that of the
meekness and gentleness of Christ. The creed itself is
doubtless a valuable monument in the history of theolo-
gical science, but surely the sober judgment of the mass
of devout Christians would agree with the weighty words
of Bishop Thirlwall, that " viewed in the light of the
fundamental principles of a Reformed Church, it appears, as
forming part of our public services, utterly indefensible." 3

1 "Walter de Cantilupe, Bishop of Worcester, exhorts his clergy,
" Habeat etiam saltern quilibet eorum simplicem intellectum, secun-
dum quod continetur in Psalmo qui dicitur, Quicunque vult," etc.

2 Arnold's " Sermons," vol. iii., p. 276.

8 See "Eeport of the Eitual Commission," 1868. Since the
Church, of Ireland has discontinued the public use of the Atliana-

Lect.VL] IN CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS OF FAITH 147

It would seem, then, that creeds should be regarded
as symbols of unity, not of division ; as instruments of
comprehension, not of exclusion. And if we so regard
them, questions of detail will become comparatively
insignificant. Already time, the universal solvent, has
taken off the rough edge of many a subject of contro-
versy. How impossible would it be, for example, to
revive any but an antiquarian interest in the great con-
troversy which raged round the Filioque clause, and
which rent the Church asunder! — and that, not because
men care less for the knowledge of God, but because,
let us hope, they have come to see that the knowledge
of God which is life eternal consists not in the accept-
ance of logical propositions, but in the inner knowledge
which springs from love. How little does the Pelagian
controversy touch our religious sentiment, even when
it is lighted up by the genius of St. Augustine ! Or, to
come nearer to our own day, how little can we now
enter into or understand the intense eagerness with
which thirty- eight years ago the decision in the Gorham
case was awaited ! And if in our day theological con-
troversy seems to be concentrating itself round the
primary article of the creed, the belief in God the
Father Almighty, this may at least serve to recall
the minds of Christian men to a truer sense of the

sian Creed, the Church of England, with the Episcopal Church of
Scotland, stands absolutely alone among Christian. Churches in
ordering the public use of this formula. It is true that in tho
Roman Breviary it is ordered to be said at Prime on Sundays ;
hut it is practically unknown to the people, or, if known, only as
a form of private devotion.

148 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VI.

proportion of things, and to teach them to close their
ranks in preparation for the great issue. In truth, the
whole area of religious thought has changed. The
battle has been fought out on one side of the field,
and has rolled away to quite another, where it has
to be fought, if with the same standards and watch-
words, yet with different weapons and under different
conditions.

At such a time it is more than ever necessary to
bear in mind that the Christian faith is not of the letter,
but of the spirit ; not a formula, but a force, an influence,
a life. The promise made by Christ to His disciples
that the Spirit of Truth whom He would send should
lead them into all the truth, was not to them only, but
to those also who should believe on Him through their
word. And it cannot be that in an age like this, when
the knowledge of truth is an object of more eager and
anxious effort than at any time before, His promise
should fail. If indeed we did not believe that the
Spirit of God was still at work, leading men through
darkness into light, through error into truth, through
doubt and perplexity and ignorance into the clear light
and true knowledge of Him, and of His Son Jesus Christ,
we might be alarmed at the outlook. Or if we thought
that the cause of God depended on human institutions
or human formulas, if we did not believe that He is
Immensus, Incomprehensible, not to be measured or
comprehended by our thoughts or definitions of Him,
then we might well tremble lest in the new world which
is before us Man should be all and there should be no

Lect.VL] IN CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS OF FAITH 149

place for God. But even as Christ told His disciples
that it was expedient for them that He should go away,
because if He went not away the Comforter would not
come to them, so it may be He says to us, It is ex-
pedient for you that the letter, the outward thiDgs in
which you have trusted, and in which you have seemed
to recognize My Presence, should pass away, in order
that the Spirit of Truth may lead you into yet higher
truth and yet clearer knowledge. We need all of us to
learn that our modes of thought are but provisional ;
that forms of doctrine and of worship need to be
quickened by the ever-fresh life of the Spirit ; that " it
is the Spirit that quickenetk, the flesh profiteth nothing;"
that, in the pregnant words of Edward Irving, " When
the Holy Ghost departs from any set of opinions or
form of character, they wither like a sapless tree." x

But, it may be said, the Catholic faith surely is
unchanged and unchangeable ? It is unchanged, just as
the tree is unchanged which has put forth the vital
energy which makes it what it is, and has grown from
a young sapling into a stately oak. It is unchangeable,
and yet we are sure that as the ages roll by, and as social
conditions change and " the thoughts of men are
widened with the progress of the suns," it will assume
fresh proportions, and will put forth fresh shoots, and
will imperceptibly adapt itself to its environment. Of
all heresies the greatest and the most deadly is that
which would limit God's revelation of Himself to one
age or to one type of character or to one system of
1 Life of Edward Irving, i., p. 347.

iSo THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VI.

thought. In Christ are all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge hidden. They are hidden that we may
search them out, that, we may expect ever fresh light
and fresh knowledge to break forth from Him. " I am
verily persuaded," said the Pastor of the Pilgrim
Fathers as they embarked in the Mayflower x — "I am
verily persuaded that the Lord has more truth yet to
break forth out of His word." "It is not incredible,"
says Bishop Butler, 2 " that a book which has been so
long in the possession of mankind should contain many
truths as yet undiscovered." " send forth Thy light
and Thy truth that they may lead me," should be the
prayer, as of each Christian man, so too of the Church at
large. " Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the
words of eternal life."

It is a very natural mistake to suppose that because
Christianity is perfect, therefore there can be no growth
or progress in it. But it is more true to say that its
very perfection implies growth. As Cardinal Newman
says, 3 " Here below to live is to change ; and to be
perfect is to have changed often ; " and again, " In such
an idea as Christianity, developments cannot but be, and
these surely Divine, because it is Divine." It is true that
the author of the " Development of Christian Doctrine"
was forging a weapon to be used in defence of the
Church of his adoption, and that he would repudiate
all development but such as proceeds on certain definite

1 Quoted by J. M. Wilson, "Essays," p. 110.

2 " Analogy," pt. ii., c. 3.

3 Essay on " Development," p. 40.

Lect.VL] IN CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS OF FAITH 151

lines of Church authority; but such weapons have a
double edge, and if once the principle of the development
of doctrine is admitted, it is difficult and hardly reverent
to prescribe beforehand in what direction the Spirit shall
lead men's minds. " Securus judicat orbis terrarum,"
is a motto which may be susceptible, in these later days,
of a wider meaning than was assigned to it either by
St. Augustine or by Cardinal Newman.

There is a touching passage, such as he alone could
have written, in the last-named author's book on
"Development," — a book written after he had withdrawn
to Littlemore, when he was preparing himself to face
the separation which he had now recognized as inevit-
able, — on which we in modern Oxford may do well to
ponder. Arguing that " the Eoman Catholic com-
munion of this day is the successor and representative
of the mediaeval Church," and "that the mediaeval
Church is the legitimate heir of the Nicene," he says,
" Did St. Athanasius or St. Ambrose suddenly come to
life, it cannot be doubted what communion he would
mistake for his own. All surely will agree that these
Fathers, with whatever opinions of their own, whatever
protests, if we will, would find themselves more at home
with such men as St. Bernard or St. Ignatius Loyola,
or with the lonely priest in his lodging, or the holy
sisterhood of mercy, or the unlettered crowd before the
altar, than with the teachers or with the members of
any other creed. And may we not add, that were those
same Saints, who once sojourned, one in exile and one in
embassy, at Treves, to come more northward still, and

152 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VI.

to travel until they reached another fair city, seated
among groves, green meadows, and calm streams, the
holy brothers would turn from many a high aisle and
solemn cloister which they found there, and ask the way
to some small chapel where mass was said in the popu-
lous alley or forlorn suburb ? " It would be obvious to
retort with the question, " If St. Paul could come to
life, where would he find himself most at home ? " But,
passing by this, I think that there is a fallacy lurking
somewhere in this passage, and that we may find it in
the little word suddenly. No doubt if a Saint of the
early Church should suddenly come to life, knowing
nothing of all the history of thought and of science and
of social life in the interval, he might well be perplexed
by what he would find, and he might very possibly find
what he sought in "some small chapel in a forlorn
suburb." But what is this but an admission that the
small chapel in a forlorn suburb has kept itself aloof
from the main current of Church life, and that Christian
thought has swept by and has left it forlorn ? It is
the saine fallacy that met us in University Keform.
When it was proposed to throw open the foundations
and reform the colleges, it was asked, " What would the
great mediaeval founders, Wykeham and Waynflete, if
they could suddenly come to life, say to the proposal to
alter the conditions of their foundations ? " The reply
was obvious, that if those great men had lived continu-
ously from the fourteenth and fifteenth to the nineteenth
century, they would undoubtedly have moved with the
age, and would have been the first to acknowledge

Lect.VL] IN CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS OF FAITH 153

that the letter must give way to the spirit, and that the
identity of a living and growing body is truer than that
of a cold and dead and unchanging statue. And in the
same way, if St. Athanasius and St. Ambrose had lived
through the decline and fall of the Empire, through the
Middle Ages, through the revival of learning, through
the Reformation, through the growth of the modern
world out of feudalism, can we believe that they would
have stood still 1 Is it conceivable that the greatest and
best men of the fourth century would have rejected
and disowned all the developments of modern life and
modern society and modern thought ? Surely no more
than they would have refused to avail themselves of
modern speech, and modern dress, and modern sanitary
laws, and modern means of communication. It is we, not
they, who are the ancients ; we who possess accumulated
stores of experience ; we who can see things in truer
proportion, and interpret more justly the ways of God
to man. To tie modern life to the forms of ancient
thought and ancient worship is surely a Mezentian
cruelty.

What, then, should be our attitude in relation to
creeds and confessions of faith 1 Are we to regard them
simply as historical monuments, records of past phases
of religious thought, witnesses of the belief of the age
which gave them birth ; or are they more than this ?
Probably the truest estimate we can form of them is to
regard them in connexion with worship, as expressions
of the Church's triumphant faith addressed to God.
Indeed, the highest type of creed may be found in the

i54 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VI.

Te Deum, that great hymn of mingled thanksgiving and
prayer and faith. And if we adhere to this view, we
shall see how wide is the difference in character between
the ancient Baptismal and Eucharistic Creeds on the one
hand, and on the other the more modern confessions, as
the decrees of the Council of Trent, the Thirty-nine
Articles, the Confession of Augsburg, or the Westminster
Confession. If, indeed, we require rigid and minute
tests of orthodoxy, it is better that for such a purpose we
should use modern forms ; the ancient Catholic creeds
should be kept sacred from controversial use. For, in
truth, we are taking a perverted view of the Christian
Covenant if we make Christian unity consist in agree-
ment in abstract doctrine. It has been well said 1 that
" the Christian Church is a body of worshippers and not of
philosophers ; a body of men whose relations to each other
are constituted by their common relation to a mysterious
Person in Whom they believe, as a Mediator between
them and God. . . . The faith required of a man to be
a Christian is faith in a Person and not in a system ;
faith in facts and promises more than in dogmas or in
truths." Surely if ecclesiastical history teaches us any-
thing, it is this, that the attempt to mould men's
thoughts into a single type is destined to failure. The
unity of the Christian Church is to be sought, not
primarily in uniformity of organization, nor in identity
of theological dogma, but in the unity of the spirit, in
the bond of peace. Let us seek and pray for that, the

1 Myers, " Catholic Thoughts on the Church of Christ and the
Church of England," p. 119.

Lect.VL] IN CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS OF FAITH 155

only true unity ; let us follow after things that make
for peace, and things whereby one may edify another ;
let us learn to love one another, and to understand one
another, and to respect one another, and to help one
another ; let us recite the creeds as expressions of trust
in our Father's love, of loyalty to Christ our Master, of
unity in the life of the Spirit ; and for the rest, let us
leave it in God's hand to work out in His way and in
His time an answer to the prayer of Christ, which
assuredly cannot fail, " That they all may be one ; as
Thou, Father, art in Me, and .1 in Thee, that they also
may be in Us ; that the world may believe that Thou
didst send Me."

LECTURE VII.

IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND LIFE.

" We serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the
letter." — Eom. vii. 6.

In the last two lectures we discussed the letter arid
the spirit in relation to the Sacraments and Creeds of the
Church, and we seemed to recognize in each of them a
permanent element, an element not of separation but of
unity, not of exclusion but of comprehension. We turn
to-day to the more general subject of Christian worship
and the Christian life.

As soon as our minds become conscious of the idea
of a Power above ourselves, the cpiestion arises, Do we
stand in any kind of relation to that Power ? And if
the Power takes in our thoughts the form of a Being
whose favour or displeasure can affect our happiness or
well-being, it becomes an important question, How can
we propitiate Him ? And since our tendency is to think
that God is even such an one as ourselves, we are
inclined to regard Him as we should wish our inferiors
to regard us. The speculations of Caliban in Browning's
poem represent too many of men's thoughts about God. 1
1 Browning, " Caliban upon Setebos."

,ect. VII.] IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND LIFE 157

" He is strong and Lord.
'Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs
That march now from the mountain to the sea :
'Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first,
Loving not, hating not, just choosing so.
As it likes me each time, thus I do : so He."

But when men thus think of God, their worship is the
Tinging, grovelling homage of slaves anxious to pro-
pitiate a capricious master. They think, " What can I
five to God that He will be pleased with 1 "What
hould I like, if I were God ? I should like something-
hat I could enjoy, or else some abject acknowledgment
>f my power." And so they offer to God meat and drink,
)r costly ornaments, or else a life, the life of an animal,
)r even of their own child, as representing that life
vhich they wish to preserve for themselves. But wdien
Jod reveals to them a higher conception of Himself, and
hey learn that He is a righteous God, they begin to
:omprehend that He will not be pleased with thousands
)f rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil ; that the
sacrifice He requires is a right life, to do justly, and to
ove mercy, and to walk humbly with Gocl. And yet
here is a third and still higher revelation of God, when
nen know Him not only as Almighty, not only as a
1 righteous Judge, but as a loving Father. And then
hey know that what He asks of them is, " My son, give
\le thine heart ; " and that the first and great command-
nent is, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
hy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,
md with all thy strength."

There are, then, three grades of worship, corresponding

158 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VII.

to these three grades of knowledge ; the worship of
giving or sacrifice, the worship of a right life, and the
worship of a loving and filial heart. And the two
former are not done away, but are included and fulfilled
in the latter. On the great law of love hang all the
Law and the Prophets. It is on this ideal that any
discussion on Christian worship must be based — that
God is not worshipped with men's hands, as though He
needed anything ; but that He desires men to offer
themselves to Him from love to their Father in Heaven.
Any worship which starts from a lower ideal than this,
any worship which is not the expression of filial trust
and reverence and love, may be true and genuine, but
is not in the highest sense Christian worship.

It may perhaps help us to arrive at a truer idea of
religious worship, if I recall what I said in my last
lecture as to the meaning of religion. We then saw
that, whereas the popular idea of religion is, that it
consists in certain opinions which a man holds, and
which constitutes a bond of union with those whom he
calls his co-religionists, while they separate him from a
far larger number of those who do not hold the same
doctrines, the root-idea of religion is the yearning of the
spirit of man after the Spirit of God. It matters little
whether we connect the word " religio " etymologically
with "religare," to bind together, or with "relegere," to
ponder, to meditate ; * the main point is, that religion in
its primary and highest signification is that which the
Psalmist expresses when he cries, " My soul is athirst for

1 Cf. Max Miiller's " Lectures on the Science of Eeligion."

jE ct. VII.] IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND LIFE 159

jod, yea even for the Living God ; when shall I come to
ippear before the Presence of God ? " It is what St.
Augustine expresses in the well-known words — which
>vho will dare to call uninspired ? — " Thou madest us
:or Thyself, and our heart is restless until it rest in
Thee." L So far it is undoubtedly true, that the first
stirrings of the religious instinct in the soul have the
affect of " making a man rest in the thought of two, and
two only, supreme and luminously self-evident beings,
himself and his Creator." 2 So far it is true that — to use
a shallow axiom of modern individualism — religion is a
thing between a man's self and his God. But if it does
not go further than this — if it does not teach him that
God's purpose for good is not for himself only but for all
men — if it does not stir in him something of our Lord's
desire " that they all may be one," it is not yet the
religion of Christ. And in the same way, no doubt
worship in the first instance is the uttering of the soul's
trust and love towards God, the entering into the closet
and praying to the Father which is in secret : but it
must go further than this, if it is to carry out the
Christian ideal ; it must be the expression, not of indi-
viduality, but of corporate unity ; it must bind together
men of all communions, of all confessions, of all lands,
and of all ages in one communion and fellowship. It is
this that constitutes the great advantage of ancient over
modern forms of devotion. When we use such forms, for
example, as the Gloria in excelsis, or the Sursum corda,

1 Aug., " Confess.," 1., c. i.

2 Ntwiaan's " Apologia."

160 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VII.

which we find quoted familiarly, just as we should quote
them ourselves, by writers of the fourth century, do we
not feel that there is in them an elevation, a Catholicity,
which we miss in even the best of modern devotions ?
When we sing the Veni Creator Spiritus, are we not
conscious of breathing a higher and purer atmosphere
than that of the modern sentimental ditties which are
dignified by the name of hymns ? And so with the
ancient Collects : it is not merely that they are redolent
of a simpler, less controversial type of religion ; but also
the mere fact of their having served as the expression
of all that was highest and noblest in a succession of
Christian generations gives them a universal currency
which cannot attach to the coinage of a more recent
religious mint. No doubt, the mediasval Church had
reduced religious worship to a service of the letter, an
unspiritual battologia, which needed a reaction ; and we
can hardly wonder that men, awakening to the con-
sciousness of the awfulness of the communion of the soul
with God, should have thought that the only way of
vindicating the supremacy of the spirit was to cast off
the letter altogether, and that worship to be true and
genuine must be the simple spontaneous expression of
the religious consciousness of the moment. But still,
those Christian communities suffered grievous loss which
in the fervour of the Eeformation cut themselves off
from the ancient liturgies. One rejoices to see symptoms
that they are becoming conscious of the loss, and that
they are beginning to claim their share in the rich devo-
tional heritage which the ancient Church has bequeathed

Lect. VI I. ] IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND LIFE 161

to us. For this reason, one cannot without regret hear
the Book of Common Prayer spoken of as though it
were the exclusive and distinctive property of a single
religious community ; and one rejoices in the declaration
of a late chairman of the Congregational Union, 1 that all
the twelve tribes of Israel claim their part in the English
Prayer-Book. As with the Sacraments and the creeds,
so with all other devotional forms ; the more we can
regard them as setting forth the unity of Christians,
and the less we think of them as badges of separation,
the better it will be for ourselves and for the Church at
large. Surely if Christians would nourish their spiritual
life mainly on the simple but solid food of the ancient
forms of worship, while at the same time they threw
themselves without reserve or scruple into the swing of
modern life, they would be approaching more nearly to
the ideal, not of a primitive Christian, nor yet of a
nineteenth century Christian, but of a Catholic Christian,
and, praying in the spirit, they might be more anxious
to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. It
is no small gain to use in our common worship forms
which are for the most part older than any of our
existing divisions.

And yet we must always remember that it is not in
forms, nor yet in the absence of forms, that any security
can be found for spiritual worship. "God is a Spirit ; and
they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and
in truth " — this is the fundamental rubric on which all
depends. One cannot but fear lest the revived interest

1 Rev. E. White.

M

i62 THE LETTER. AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VII.

in ritual which has grown out of the Oxford movement,
attractive and helpful as much of it may be, should
tend to make religion a matter of what Carlyle calls
"rhythmic drill," a matter of attendance at Holy Com-
munion, of observance of rules, of membership of guilds
and the like; and lest, in the stress laid upon the outward,
the inward should be lost sight of. Among young men
especially, there is great fear lest the over-systematizing
of religion, the tendency to reduce it to a mechanical
uniformity, should destroy that individuality, that
spontaneousness, which gives to personal religion its true
value. • I admit that for all except perhaps the strongest
types of character some kind of outward framework,
some system and method in the religious life, is a useful
and even necessary help ; but let us never forget that
throughout the New Testament variety and not uni-
formity is set forth as the characteristic result of the
working of the Spirit of God. Whatever forms we may
find useful to ourselves, let us use them, provided we do
not suffer them to obscure the end to which they are
but means : but let us bear in mind two things ; first,
that forms need to be continually kept living and fresh
by the quickening Spirit, and that without this they
will become lifeless and corrupt ; and secondly, that we
must not set up our own practice as the standard for
others, for that St. Paul's caution applies to this subject
— " Who art thou that judgest the servant of another ?
to his own lord he standeth or falleth." The kingdom
of God is not in word — not in profession, not in
observances — but in power ; in victory over evil, in a

Lect. VII.] IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND LIFE 163

life of Christian activity. Labor are est or are is a motto
which is capable of being pushed to a dangerous extreme,
and outward activity is of the letter that killeth unless
it be stirred and regulated by the spirit of power and
love and discipline ; but we shall do harm to the cause
of Christian boldness if we allow the idea of religion to
be associated rather with the dprja-KeCa of observances
than with that of active usefulness.

But to return to worship in the more abstract sense,
it may be useful to ask, What is it that marks it as
distinctively Christian ? We may, of course, assume that
it must be spiritual, or, in other words, that it must be
not outward and mechanical merely, but the expression
of the devotion of the heart ; but further than this, to
make it Christian, it must be offered in the Name of
Christ : " Whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My
Name, He will give it you." It has generally been held
that prayer in the Name of Christ implied the invocation
of His Name or of His merits ; and so it has been
customary in the Western Church to conclude all prayers
addressed to the Father with the Name of Jesus Christ.
It is well that we should do so, if only to associate our
worship expressly with Him through Whom we have our
access in one Spirit unto the Father : but we must not
think that the mere naming of His Name is all that is
required, we must not treat the Name of Christ as a
kind of charm by which to commend our prayers to
God ; rather, as we were baptized into Jesus Christ, as
He is the element wherein the whole Christian life
moves, as whatsoever we do, in word or deed, we are to

i6 4 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VII.

do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus, so prayer above
all, which is the expressing and the presenting to God
of the whole life, must be done in conscious connexion
with Christ, must be offered by us as being one with
Him. As Luthardt well expresses it, he prays in
Christ's Name who is in Christ. 1 The essence of prayer
is, that it should be offered in a filial spirit ; and all
such prayer is offered to the Father in the Son's Name,
whether or not the Name of Christ is spoken. He who
says from his heart " Our Father," prays in Christ's Name.
To pray in the Name of Jesus Christ is to pray as He
prayed, " Father, not my will, but Thine be done."

And from this it would appear that Theism, which
professes to accept Christ as a Teacher and an Example
but not as a Mediator, is in fact, not an advance to a
more spiritual conception of religion, but rather a falling
back under the dominion of the letter. For Christ came
not to proclaim only, but to carry into effect the will of
the Father, through Him to reconcile all things unto
Himself — and if men are able to cry " Abba, Father," it
is through the Spirit of Christ in their hearts, even

1 Luthardt, " Johann. Evang.," ii., p. 306: "ImNamen Christi
Iietet, wer, indem er betet, <fj> Xpicn-ai ist und als Iv Xpiara seiender zu
Gott betet." And cf. Campbell, " The Bread of Life," p. 96 : " The
law of the kingdom of God, according to which prayer in the Name
of the Son is answered, and that according to which prayer for things
according to the Father's Will is answeied, are one and the same
law. For to ask in the Name of the Son, is to ask in the light of
His Name in Whom the Father is well pleased. In answering
such prayer, God is not granting for Christ's sake what for His Own
sake He would not grant. He is granting that which His delight
in Christ reveals His eternal willingness to grunt."

Lect. VII.] IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND LIFE 165

though they may think that they are coming to the
Father independently of Him. No man cometh unto
the Father but by Him ; and if men feel in their hearts
a yearning after God, if they feel a craving which
nothing but God can satisfy, we may confidently leave
them in the hand of the Good Shepherd, and trust that
He will carry out in them His perfect work, and lead
them in the way everlasting. There is indeed some truth
in Pascal's remark, that the knowledge of God, without
Jesus Christ, is useless and barren. 1 For any conception
of God which professes to be independent of Christ is
either derived from the Christian tradition, or else is a
more or less dreary denial of the possibility of any true
spiritual communion with God, a religion of timid and
tentative affirmations, and of bold and dogmatic nega-
tions. It is a delusion to imagine that a pure Theism is
a more spiritual form of belief than Christianity. More
spiritual it may be than the traditional Christianity
which consists in rigid and stereotyped forms of practice,
of ceremonial, of observance, of dogma ; but not more
spiritual than the teaching of Christ Himself, the end
and completion of Whose work was to bring men to the
Father, to teach them that God is a Spirit, and to send
the Spirit of the Father into the hearts of His disciples.
It would be a strange perversity if men should reject
Christ in the name of spiritual religion, when it is to
Christ and to Him alone that they owe the conception
of what spiritual religion is.

The acceptance of the spiritual rather than the
1 Pascal, " Pensees," xiv. 2.

1 66 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VII.

literal view of worship would have acted as a solvent in
many controversies. Take, for example, the question of
prayers for the departed. That it was the custom of
the Church from the earliest times to pray for the dead
is beyond all question. 1 Tertullian, Origen, St. Chry-
sostom, St. Augustine, and, indeed, all early writers
assume it as the established practice. In truth, the
vivid sense which the early Church possessed of the
communion of Saints, the belief that the dead, like
the living, are in Christ, that all live unto God, made
it impossible for them to pray for the one without the
other. But men were not content to observe this as
a pious and beautiful practice ; they asked, " In what are
the dead benefited by our prayers % " And so there sprang
up the theory that by the prayers of the living the
purgatorial sufferings of the dead were mitigated and
shortened ; and then came masses for the dead, alms to
help souls out of purgatory, and all the lucrative traffic
of the mediaeval Church. This is not the only natural
and harmless practice that has been turned by the
interest of the priesthood and the credulity of the people
into a gross and carnal superstition. And so at the
Reformation it was inevitable that the whole thing should
be swept away, and that logic should prevail over feel-
ing, and that prayers for the departed should disappear
from the service-books of the Church. And vet, does
not a human instinct sometimes rebel against the stern
logic of Protestantism ? Does not a parent who has lost
a child sometimes refuse to banish the loved and familiar
1 See authorities in Bingham, " An'iq.," xv. iii. § 16.

Lect. VII.] IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND LIFE 167

name from his prayers, simply because the child who
bears it has gone home to his Father in Heaven ? If,
indeed, we are to apply to prayer the inexorable test of
results, there may be many a prayer that we shall hardly
dare to offer ; but if we pray because we know that God
our Father would have us open our hearts to Him, and
because we believe that those whom we love are in His
hands, then no dogma and no fear of superstition need
hinder us from asking Him to bless them, and to let the
light of His countenance shine upon them and His
perpetual Presence comfort them.

I have already, in a former lecture, pointed out how
largely _ the letter has prevailed over the spirit in the
Sacraments, especially in the Eucharist. But in con-
nexion with this latter act of worship, it may be well to
touch upon one or two incidental points, on which the
principle for which I am contending has an important
hearing. Great stress is now being laid by a section of
the clergy of the Church of England on the practice
of fasting communion. Young persons are urged always
to communicate at early celebrations, and communion
otherwise than fasting is regarded as a profanation of
the Holy Mysteries. It is enforced, not on the rational
ground that fasting tends to keep the mind clear and is
a means of subduing the flesh, but on purely physical
and materialistic grounds. " Remember " — so says a
little book on the ceremonial of the Altar, 1 drawn up for

1 " The Ceremonial of the Altar." Compiled by a Priest. Swan
Sotinenschein and Co. The aim of this book is "to put the student
in possession of the traditions on the method of saying Mass, which

1 68 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VII.

the use of loyal sons of the Church of England — " Re-
member that the fast from midnight before Communion
is rigorous, and that a lozenge or a sip of water breaks
it as effectually as the heaviest meal." It is difficult to
speak with patience of such a caricature of the religion
of Christ. It is difficult to conceive that the teachers of
such a system can ascribe any authority to the words of
Christ, "The flesh profiteth nothing," or to those of St.
Paul, "The kingdom of God is not meat and drink."
At least one may be allowed to describe such teaching
in the words of Bishop Wilberforce, 1 spoken in his last!

the compilers of our Prayer-Book presupposed to exist." The
following is a sample: "As you give out the Gospel, place the
left hand on the book, and with the right thumb make a snr-ill
sign of the Cross on the buok at the commencement of the Gospel
you are about to read. Then, at once transferring the left hand to
the breast, make similar signs with the right thumb on your fore-
head and on your breast. The fingers meanwhile are extended,
and the palms are turned inwards."

There are full directions as to the ceremonial to be observed
when the Blessed Sacrament is exposed for adoration, or placed
veiled on the Altar.

The perusal of this book is likely to be instructive to "loyal
sons of the Church of England."

1 The quotation is from " an Address delivered by the late
Bishop of Winchester to the Eural Deans of the Diocese at Win-
chester House, July 15, 1873." The Beport was printed shortly
after his death, which took place on July 19th, and was "carefully
prepared by comparison of notes taken at the time." He says, " It
is difficult to estimate the mischief which is resulting from the
action of the High Bitualistio party in this matter. . . It is not in
a light sense that I say this new doctrine of Fasting Communion
is dangerous. The practice is not advocated because a man comes
in a clearer spirit and less disturbed body and mind, able to give
himself entirely to prayer and communion with his God ; but on a
miserable degraded notion that the consecrated elements will meet
with other food in the stomach. It is a detestable materialism."

Lect. VII.] IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND LIFE 169

public utterance before his death : "It is a detestable
materialism."

Closely connected with this is the subject of evening
celebrations of the Holy Communion. This is a question
which was fully dealt with in the notes to Dr. Hessey's
well-known Bampton Lectures on the subject of Sunday,
but which may be touched upon briefly as illustrating
our present subject. With many of the objections urged
against this modern practice it is possible to feel much
sympathy. There is much in the general though not
universal practice of the Church from primitive times to
the nineteenth century ; there is much in the preference
of the earlier and more tranquil hours of the day for the
solemnities of religion ; there is much in the fear lest
persons should come to evening Communions in a state
either of lassitude or of excitement. But still, if it is
true that there are large classes of persons who are
absolutely unable to attend in the earlier hours of the
day, it is surely competent for every particular or national
Church, 1 having " authority to ordain, change, and
abolish, ceremonies or rites of the Church ordained only
by man's authority " (and it is impossible to contend
that Christ ordained early celebrations when He instituted
His Supper in the evening) — it is, I say, surely competent
for a Church or even for a particular congregation to
revert to the earliest use, and to celebrate the Eucharist
in the evening. For, as I tried to point out in an earlier
lecture, the essence of the Eucharist lies, not in the mere
ceremonial observance, but in the spirit of devotion to
1 Article XXXIV.

170 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VII.

Christ, and of hopeful looking for His kingdom, and of
brotherly helpfulness to our fellow-rnen ; and these
things depend not on the hour of celebration, but on the
attitude of the heart towards God. The great principle
which our Lord laid clown, " The Sabbath was made
for man, and not man for the Sabbath," is conclusive as
to all matters of mere outward regulation and order ; it
tells us that the well-being, the edification, even the con-
venience of man is superior to all observance of the letter
for its own sake ; and that if we exalt ceremonial regula-
tions into Divine laws we are trenching on the authority
of the Son of Man, who is Lord, as of the sabbath, so also
of all else that affects the welfare of His people. One
cannot but fear that, in the scrupulous attention which
is paid to matters of this kind in the present day, there
is something of timidity lest by asserting our Christian
liberty we should be widening the breach between our-
selves and the Church of Rome. But surely we of the
Church of England are strono- enough to take our own
ground in these matters ; and assuredly no amount of
conformity to so-called Catholic usage, short of absolute
surrender to the Papal authority, will win for us any
kind of recognition from the Roman Church. : ' With
freedom did Christ set us free ; stand fast therefore, and
be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage" is an
admonition not less needed by us than it was by the
Churches of Galatia to whom it was addressed.

The conflict between the letter and the spirit has not
been confined to the interpretation of Scripture or to
the ecclesiastical sphere : it meets us also in the common

Lect. VI L] IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND IIFE 171

life of Christians. To one who honestly and heartily
desires to live a godly life, it is a question of no small
importance and interest, " How shall I guide my steps ?
What is the authority to which I can turn in all those
many cases of doubt and difficulty which are sure from
time to time to occur ? " To this question various
answers have been oiven. In one ao-e of the Church,
the reply would have been, " Place your conscience in
the hands of your Confessor. He is divinely autho-
rized to relieve you of all responsibility." At another
time, or by other teachers, the answer would have been
given, "A thorough knowledge of Scripture is the only
means of keeping your life right. Whenever a diffi-
culty emerges, you should have a text ready ; if only
you are accustomed to keep scriptural weapons ready
to hand, the right text will never fail you at the right
moment." And there is yet another answer, to the
effect that moral action, like all other action, depends
on the right application of certain fundamental prin-
ciples, and that this application must be made, not at
haphazard, but in accordance with definite rules ; and
hence it follows that the study of casuistry, or the
method of ascertaining in each case what is the right
course to follow, is, if not indispensable for ordinary
persons, yet at least a great help for those who would
walk accurately and carefully, and a necessity for those
who are to be moral or religious guides. Yet here, too,
we shall find that the letter killeth ; the man who walks
by a system, the man who has a text or a precedent
always ready, the man who gives his conscience no free

172 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VII.

play, but who trusts to being able to refer every diffi-
cult question to some rule, as though, it were a question
of grammar or mathematics, will become dependent on
his system, and will lose that delicate moral instinct,
that quick perception of right and wrong, which belongs
to those who trust to the guidance of the Spirit of God,
who by reason of use have their senses exercised to
discern good and evil. Just as in art originality is a
higher and a nobler thing than servile imitation, so in
morals it is better that a man should simply follow his
conscience than that he should act by the advice even
of the wisest confessor or in obedience to even the most
admirable rules. There is a moral intuition, an instinct
of right and wrong, which is better than all the rules
and all the systems in the world. The proverb,
" Second thoughts are best," is true of matters of
worldly management and prudence ; it is not true in
questions of morals. As Bishop Butler says, 1 "In all
common ordinary cases, we see intuitively at first view
what is our duty, what is the honest part. This is the
ground of the observation, that the first thought is
often the best. In these cases doubt and deliberation is
itself dishonesty." " In matters of duty," says Car-
dinal Newman, " first thoughts are commonly best —
they have more in them of the voice of God." 2 Or, as
the same distinction is expressed by a modern writer, 3
" When we consider human action, whether theoretically

1 Butler's Sermon on Balaam, " Works," ii., p. 84.
- Newman's " Sermons," bk. iv., p. 36.
8 Cf. "Natural Eeligion," pp. 173-174.

Lect. VII.] IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND LIFE 173

or historically, we are always brought to this funda-
mental antithesis. Human action is either mechanical
or intelligent, either conventional or rational, — either it
follows custom or reason, either it is guided by rules or
by inspiration. In morals as in poetry, you must be
of the school either of Boileau or of Shakespeare.
Either you must sedulously observe a number of regu-
lations you do not hope to understand, or yoir must
move freely towards an end you passionately conceive,
at times making new rules for yourself, at times reject-
ing old ones, and allowing to convention only a kind of
provisional or prescriptive validity." And in the forma-
tion of the Christian character, the cultivation of this
faculty of trusting to inspiration is of the utmost im-
portance. For what God requires of us is, not right
action simply, but right action as the outcome and
evidence of a right state of the moral being. Here
again we meet with the fundamental distinction between
faith and works. To do right — that is salvation by
works ; to be right — that is salvation by faith.

Upon this same antithesis are based two opposite
theories of government and two opposite systems of
education. In politics, the one tendency is to develop
individuality as far as is consistent with the safety of
the society ; the other, to subordinate the individual to
the society. It is not only in a despotic form of govern-
ment that individualism is liable to be crushed out ;
democracy is often a still worse tyrant, and enforces its
ideal mediocrity under still heavier penalties. It is one
great danger of modern society, that men born to lead

i74 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VII.

must so often make choice between being set aside as
unpractical, and consenting to follow and not to lead
the multitude.

The same opposite tendencies meet us in education. 1
The one system aims at reducing the individual into con-
formity with a certain type ; to make him a good citizen
or a good churchman, or whatever the type may be. Of
this, one could hardly find a better example than in the
Republic of Plato. To him it appeared that a thorough
reform of education was needed as a remedy for the evils
of the time. And this reform was to consist in producing
conformity in the citizen, according to his capacity and
his calling, to an objective type, existing outside of
man, in relation to which all his faculties and his tastes
were to be trained and moulded. The tendency of
modern times, speaking generally, has been to a different
system ; to develop freely whatever was in a man, so
as to produce, not conformity to a type, but the perfec-
tion of the individual. This certainly, with whatever
shortcomings, has been the aim of modern university
education ; to produce " a succession of persons duly
qualified to serve God iu Church and State," not by a
mechanical process of putting into them certain opinions
and certain habits, but by the more spiritual method of
educating and developing whatever faculties, whatever
possibilities, were implanted in them by God. This
must be our reply to those who lament that Oxford is
no longer, in the same exclusive sense as she once was,

1 Some thoughts in this passage were suggested by Mark
Pattison's sermon on the subject of " Education."

Lect. VII.] IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND LIFE 175

a nursing mother of the Church of England ; that it is
better to take men as they are, and to make what you
can of them, than by attempting to impress upon all a
special ecclesiastical type to discourage all development
except in one direction. We may well trust that the
modern system will produce men of various types,
capable and desirous of understanding each other's point
of view, willing to learn of each other, and each ready
to admit that different aspects of the truth may com-
mend themselves to different persons. And if it is
asserted that the Universities, admitting as they do
without restriction persons of every variety of religious
and non-religious belief, are no longer fit places for the
training of the clergy of the National Church, we may
reply that an atmosphere of liberty, in which all opinions
are alike represented and all alike claim to be respected,
is a far healthier and more bracing one than that of a
theological seminary, in which a man comes into contact
with men of only one type, and in which he forms his
idea of other systems of religious thought only from the
account given of them by their adversaries. If the
Church of England is to preserve and extend her claim
to the title of the National Church, it can only be by
her clergy learning to understand men of other religious
systems, and acknowledging that no one body of Chris-
tian people can claim a monopoly either of truth or of
holiness.

It is far less difficult to give ourselves up to the
guidance of a system or of a director than to accept the
responsibility of walking by the Spirit. The temptation

176 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VII.

comes to us in the plausible form, of humility and self-
distrust. " Surely we are more likely to arrive at truth
by taking what Aristotle calls the unproven assertions
of the wise, than by painfully hammering out a system
for ourselves out of the results of our own thought and
experience." It maybe so, and we may very reasonably
avail ourselves of the labours of others and of the accu-
mulated wisdom of the past ; but still we cannot divest
ourselves of our personal responsibility, we cannot adopt
the opinions or the rules of other men at seconddiand,
any more than we can wear their clothes ; for our minds
and spirits differ as much as do our bodies, and what
fits one man is too wide or too narrow for another.
" Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." We
cannot be children in understanding ; we must walk as
men. It is for this reason that one mistrusts the ten-
dency, which appears over and over again in the most
various forms, to reduce the Christian life to a system,
to rely upon rules rather than upon principles, to fall
back upon the oldness of the letter. A striking instance
of this is the astonishing way in which, notwithstanding
the plain words of St. Paul, Christian people have
insisted upon identifying the Lord's Day with the
Jewish Sabbath, and have invented a traditional code
of Sunday observance which forces upon one's mind the
Apostle's words, " I am afraid of you, lest by any means
I have bestowed upon you labour in vain." And now
the reaction seems to be upon us, and people seem bent
upon asserting a liberty which it is difficult to call
Christian. It is of little use solemnly to discuss the

Lect. VII] IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND LIFE 177

question, What recreations, if any, are lawful on
Sunday ? Surely we cannot hesitate to reply, " All
things are lawful for me." Yes, but let us not omit the
balancing consideration, " But all things are not ex-
pedient." It is a matter in which it is more easy but
less necessary to assert our Christian liberty than to be
careful of the claims of Christian charity. It is better
to deny ourselves than, by claiming our full liberty, to
hurt the consciences or to abridge the liberty of others.

Another curious instance of the way in which men
cling to the letter, to some kind of positive rule, is the
assertion which one sometimes hears that God claims at
least a tenth of every one's income as an offering to
Him. One would have thought that the only Christian
principle is, " Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh
not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple." One
would have thought that the fixing of a certain definite
proportion savours of St. Peter's question, " Lord, how
oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him ?
Until seven times ? " Thus Irenseus x says that our Lord
came to expand and extend the Law, and, instead of
definite commands, to substitute principles; and "there-
fore, instead of, ' Thou shalt not commit adultery,' He
commanded men not to lust ; and instead of, ' Thou
shalt not kill,' not even to be angry ; and instead of
paying tithe, to divide all one's goods to the poor."
Indeed, it is obvious that this rule would be quite in-
adequate as a moral standard, and that to give a tenth
of his income would be to one man no perceptible sacri-
1 Irenasus, "Hser.," iv. 27.

N

178 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VII.

fice at all ; while to another, or to the same man at
another period of his life, it would involve the cur-
tailing of his children's education and the neglect to
make provision for his family. All such hard and fast
rules tend to kill the spontaneousness of Christian bene-
ficence, and to turn it into a matter of calculation. The
only Christian law is the law of love, and love —

" Eejects the lore
Of nicely calculated less or more." 1

And so we are brought back to the great funda-
mental principle, which underlies all religion and all
worship, that " Love is the fulfilling of the law ; " that
the only sacrifice that God desires is the sacrifice of a
loving heart ; that if we bestow all our goods to feed
the poor, and if we give our bodies to be burned, and
have not love, it profiteth us nothing. Prayer, alms-
giving, outward observances, all must have their root in
love, or they will become cold and dead and meaning-
less. And yet, on the other hand, we may not let our
religion evaporate into a sentiment, a perfume ; we
must serve God not in oldness of the letter, not as a
matter of routine, of law, of respectability, of social
position, but in newness of the spirit, with the new
energy, the new enthusiasm, the new hope, with which
Christ inspires His servants. Not less but more obedi-
ence, not less but more self-sacrifice, is demanded of
those who are not under the Law but under grace.

And if we of the nineteenth century, we upon whom
the ends of the world are come, are ever tempted to
2 Wordsworth, " Ecclesiastical Sonnets," xliii.

Lect. VII.] IN CHRISTIAN WORSHIP AND LIFE 179

think that we are wiser, more enlightened, more free
from superstitions than men of past generations, and to
despise the simple faith of earlier days, let us see to it
that with our wider knowledge, our more unfettered
thought, there be not less of holiness, of simplicity, of
purity, of faithful obedience to duty and to conscience,
than there was in the life of those who knew nothing of
our eager questionings, of our intellectual restlessness,
but who knew Christ, and the power of His resurrection.

" The Master stood upon the mount, and taught.
He saw a fire in His disciples' eyes.
' The old law,' they said, ' is wholly come to nought !
Behold the new world rise ! '

" ' Was it,' the Lord then said, ' with scorn ye saw
The old law observed by Scribes and Pharisees ?
I say unto you, see ye keep that law
More faithfully than these !

" ' Too hasty heads for ordering worlds, alas !

Think not that I to annul the law have will'd ;
Xo jot, no tittle, from the law shall pass,
Till all hath been fulfill'd.'

" So Christ said eighteen hundred years ago.

And what, then, shall be said to those to-day
Who cry aloud to lay the old world low
To clear the new world's way ?

" ' Religious fervours ! Ardour misapplied !

Hence, hence,' they cry, ' ye do but keep man blind !
But keep him self-immersed, pre-oooupied,
And lame the active mind.'

" Ah ! from the old world let some one answer give :

' Scorn ye this world, their tears, their inward cares ?
I say unto you, see that your souls live
A deeper life than theirs.' " 1

1 Matthew Arnold, " Progress."

LECTURE VIII.

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE.
"The spirit giveth life."— 2 Cor. iii. 6.

Having spoken of the letter and the spirit in Scripture,
in the Church, in the Sacraments, and in the Creeds, and
in Christian worship and life, I propose in this last
lecture to turn your thoughts mainly to the future. But
before doing so, suffer me to recapitulate very briefly
what I said in my fourth lecture as to the essence of the
Church, and to touch for a moment on the historical
position of the Church of England.

In speaking of the Christian Society, I endeavoured
to show that the Church in its ideal is not a body dis-
tinguished from other religious societies by the possession
of a particular form of organization, on which is
dependent the due transmission of spiritual j^owers and
influences, but simply the Christian people, united
together under their Divine Head, entering into a
definite relation to Him and to each other by the
initiatory rite of Baptism, maintaining and renewing
that relation in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and
possessing such a system of organization and officers

Lect. VIII.] THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 181

as shall enable the body rightly to fulfil its functions,
and shall constitute an adequate representation of the
whole society. But as in the political sphere there is
the danger of the governing authority arrogating to
itself an independent power, so that the king or the
aristocracy or the parliament says L'etat c'est moi, so in
the ecclesiastical there is the tendency for the clergy to
usurp the rights of the Church, and to say L'e'glise c'est
nous. Happily, such a usurpation can confer no pre-
scriptive rights. The legal maxim which saves the
rights of the crown from encroachment, Nullum tempjus
occurrit regi, might perhaps still better be read, Nullum
tempus occurrit populo. The idea of the Church may
he overlaid and obscured by a long period of priestly
domination, and the people may acquiesce in suffering
their rights to be dormant ; but if the Church is not
dead, the Christian democracy will in time reassert
itself, and the Church will once more be recognized,
not as a priesthood, but as a congregation of faithful
men.

Such a reassertion of the Church ideal was made in
the Reformation of the sixteenth century. We form a
very inadequate idea of what the Eeformation was, if we
think of it simply as the shaking off of the supremacy of
the Roman see, or as the mere putting away of certain
abuses in discipline or of certain superstitions in worship.
It was this, no doubt, and to many of the actors in the
drama it may have seemed no more ; but if we look at
the history of the time, not as having a thesis to main-
tain, but with a desire to arrive at the truth of things,

182

THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIII.

we shall see that in its essence it was the assertion of
the lay power as against the so-called spiritualty, the
declaration of the principle that the Church is the
Christian people.

It may be objected to this view that the people were
very much passive in the movement, and that both in
England and elsewhere it was the rulers that decided
the question whether or no the Reformation should be
accepted, and, if accepted, what form it should take. 1 It
is, of course, quite true that in the sixteenth century
what we understand by popular government did not
exist except in the Swiss cantons and in the Republic of
Geneva ; and that the personal will of the Sovereign was
the principal factor in the question. But this does not
affect the present argument, which is that the Reformation
proceeded on the principle that each nation, represented
by its national Government, possessed the right to re-
model its Church organization, and to decide — subject
to the supreme authority of Scripture — what should be
its system of Church government and what its form of
worship. To us of the Church of England this principle
is embodied in the Royal Supremacy. It is difficult to
see on what ground the Sovereign can be declared to be
" over all persons, in all causes, as well ecclesiastical
as temporal, throughout his dominions supreme," or

1 Thus the Landgrave of Heseen convoked a synod at Homberg
in 1526, to determine the future constitution of the Church in that
principality. Cf. Hardwick, " Eeformation," p. 375. The synod
asserted for the people the right of deposing Bishops. " Deponat
ecclesia episcopum suuni, quod ad eani speotat judicare de voce
pastorum." — Schminke, " Monumenta Hassiaca," c. 23.

Lect. VIII.] THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 183

" supreme governor of the Church, within his dominions,"
unless it be on the ground that the Church is the nation
in its religious aspect, and that the Sovereign, as repre-
sentative of the nation, is supreme over every department
of the national life. That this view was not unaccept-
able to the Bishops is shown by the fact that at the
accession of Edward VI., Cranmer and several other
Bishops took out Commissions to hold their sees during
the Royal pleasure, 1 and that in 1540 Cranmer and other
divines, in their reply to Henry VIII., distinctly speak of
civil and ecclesiastical authorities as co-ordinate under
the king: 2 "The civil ministers under the King's
Majesty in this realm of England, be those whom it
shall please his Highness for the time to put in authority
under him : as for example, the Lord Chancellor, Lord
Treasurer, Lord Great Master, Mayors, Sheriffs, etc.
The ministers of God's word, under His Majesty, be the
bishops, parsons, vicars, and such other priests as be
appointed by his Highness to that ministration : as
for example, the Bishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of
Durham, the Bishop of Winchester, the Parson of Win-
wick, etc. All the said officers and ministers, as well of
the one sort as of the other, be appointed, assigned, and
elected to every place, by the laws and orders of kings
and princes. In the admission of many of these officers
be divers comely ceremonies and solemnities used, which

1 Hallam, "Const. Hist.," i., p. 100, quoting Burnet, ii. 6.
But Hard wick thinks this was only a commission empowering the
Bishops to exercise jurisdiction in tbeir dioceses (" Ketbrmation,"
p. 193, n. 5).

2 Cranmer's Works, ed. Jenkyns, ii., p. 101.

1 84 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIII.

be not of necessity, but only for a good order and seemly
fashion ; for if such offices and ministrations were com-
mitted without such solemnity, they were nevertheless
truly committed. And there is no more promise of God,
that grace is given in the committing of the ecclesiastical
office, than it is in the committing of the civil office."
This no doubt would appear to most persons in the
present day as pure Erastianism : nor do I quote it now
in order to commend to your acceptance the particular
view of Church authority which it appears to imply; but
only as indicating the theory on which the Eeformation
of the Church of England seems to have been based by
those who were chiefly responsible for it, and the ground
which they took in separating from the Eoman obedience.
Certainly from the Archiepiscopate of Cranmer to that of
Laud, we do not find that what is now called the Catholic
theory was largely present to men's minds in determining
their attitude with reference to Roman claims. No
doubt Queen Elizabeth and Archbishop Parker were
anxious to preserve all that could be preserved of the
ancient forms both of government and of worship, and
to them we owe much that is now valued by all English
Churchmen ; but still it was mainly the national, and not
the wider aspect of the Church that was prominent. In
the words of Dr. Mozley : l " The swing of Henry VIII.'s
monarchy was simple nationalism, and nothing else ; the
nation delighted in it." And if this was true of Henry
VIII.'s, no less was it true of Elizabeth's monarchy,
especially after the Pope's excommunication and the
1 Mozley, "Essays," i., p. 186.

Lect. VIII.] THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 185

Spanish Armada had roused the national spirit. The
isolation of England resulting from Henry's breach with
the Papal see, the masterful character of the Tudor
Sovereigns, the almost theocratic character which was
ascribed to the English monarchy, all these combined to
impress upon the Church of England a character of
nationality to which it owes many of its best and some
perhaps of its worse features. 1 Even Laud's fatal attempt
to revive the feudal idea of ecclesiastical power, and to
call in the secular arm to enforce Church censures, was in
its intention a national movement ; the charge of wish-
ing to introduce Popery was only so far true, that the
King and the Archbishop were to be joint Popes : had
the nation been of Laud's mind, he would have built up
a compact and strong national polity in Church and
State, each quite distinct, yet each supporting the other,
and united together by the monarchy at the top. But
the nation was not of Laud's mind, and his scheme was
rudely shattered. Yet the national idea still lasted ; and
at the restoration of the monarchy, a very moderate
concession on the part of the Bishops would have drawn
the mass of the Puritans into the Church. But the
reorganization of the Church was conducted on other
lines, and the principle of sectarianism — the principle
which asserts either that Christianity does not require
and is not advanced by external unity, or that such

1 " The nationality of the Church — never, we admit, fully
attained — has been its most permanent and beneficent power." See
an interesting essay by the Rev. G. S. Eeany, Pastor of Cavendish
Chapel, Manchester, in a collection of " Essays on Church Reform,"
published by Swan Sonnenschein and Co.

1 86 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIII.

unity must consist in uniformity of belief and worship
and discipline — was accepted, and from that time forth
the idea of a national Church has dwindled into a number
of collateral religious societies, one of them claiming to
represent alone the ancient Church of England, and
the rest being the result of the free development of
individual ideas and preferences.

Few, probably, would willingly acquiesce in the
existing ecclesiastical condition of England. Few will
deny that we need to widen our conceptions of the
possibilities of Church life by looking above the actual
to the ideal. Few can look upon Christendom at large
without feeling that if Christianity is ever to develop
into a world-religion it can only be by drawing up into
itself, and appropriating whatever is good and true in
all other systems of thought and life ; by discriminating
between what is temporary and local, and what is
eternal and universal. It will not, indeed, hastily
and prematurely break with the old ; old forms are often
the best support for new life, and the healthiest life is
that in which there is least breach of continuity. As in
the individual, so in the corporate life, the child should
be father of the man. But if we believe that all
things are to be subjected unto Christ, not by a violent
catastrophe, but by the silent working of spiritual forces,
we can hardly doubt that, after all, the Church is still in
its childhood, that in many respects it still speaks as a
child, feels as a child, thinks as a child : and that the
Spirit has still to go on with the work of education,
taking of the things of Christ and declaring them to

Lect. VIII.] THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 187

us. Surely the marvellous expansion which science has
given to our conceptions of the physical world, the
extension of our ideas of time and space from the
chronology of Archbishop Ussher and the solar system
of Copernicus to the vast ages of time and the inter-
stellar spaces which geology and astronomy reveal to us,
may suggest that God's work in the spiritual world is
not to be measured by our standards, and that a
thousand years in His sight are but as yesterday. And
therefore, if we may venture to speak of the future in no
spirit of confident prediction but as using that large
discourse which God has given to all of us as a means of
looking before and after, our object will be the practical
one of trying to see in what direction we ought to work,
and how we may best make the present a starting-point
for better things.

Perhaps we may anticipate that in the matter of
organization and outward form the Christian society of
the future will combine many elements that have here-
tofore been looked upon as incompatible with each other.
We cannot doubt that, on the one hand, the Catholic
theory, that the faith and the Church is everywhere one,
will find its realization ; that the belief in the Holy
Catholic Church will no longer be understood as a
declaration that he who professes it is claiming fellow-
ship with a definitely limited body of Christians, and
marking himself off from others ; that the body of
Christ will more and more tend to become co-extensive
with that redeemed humanity of which Christ is the
head. And yet, just as the consciousness of the unity

1 88 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIII.

of the race does not abolish national and tribal and
family distinctions, but only subordinates them to a
higher conception, even so the consciousness that the
Catholic Church is wider than all our limitations will
not obscure the boundaries of national and local
"Churches, but will set them in their proper dependence
under the wider and higher idea. And if once we have
received into our minds that wider idea, we shall find
it less difficult to be patient and tolerant of all those
narrow and inadequate conceptions which have taken its
place. " The dissidence of Dissent " — that is, indeed,
not an inspiring ideal : one would rather say, " I believe
in the Holy Catholic Church," even if in so saying one
only meant, " I believe in Episcopally governed Chris-
tendom," than, " I believe in the dissidence of Dissent."
But at the same time we cannot close our eyes to the
fact, that the spirit of individualism which has led the
Christian people of Great Britain to segregate themselves
into 180 religious denominations, 1 has its place in the
economy of God's providence, and that at any rate a
living sectarianism is better than a dead uniformity.
And in the same way, we cannot but believe that of the
great religious denominations, from the Roman Church
to the Society of Friends, every one has some contribu-
tion to bring to the building up of the Church that is to
be; that they are destined, not to be destroyed or cast as
rubbish to the void, but to be drawn up and gradually
assimilated into the wider and more healthy and more
fruitful social life. And the great practical thought that
1 "Statesman's Year-book for 1888."

Lect. VIII.] THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 189

forces itself upon us in this connexion is, that we should
none of us be content to acquiesce in the present condi-
tion of religious disintegration. The Master's desire
"that they all may be one," can never be held to be
satisfied by His disciples sitting down in little groups of
believers and regarding each other with benevolent
sentiments. For think only for one instant of the waste
of power which such a theory involves. Think of the
rival missionary societies, home and foreign ; think of
the overlapping organizations, religious, philanthropic,
educational ; think of a small area having one set of
Church institutions, two or three sets of Nonconformist
institutions, and another set of undenominational institu-
tions. AVould it be possible for us to accept such a state
of things as tolerable, if we had not sophisticated our
minds into the belief that it is the best attainable 1

I know that there will be those, perhaps even in this
congregation, who will be ready to say, " There is a per-
fectly simple and easy solution to the difficulty. Dis-
establish and disendow the Church of England, and all
denominations will fall into each other's arms, indif-
ferentism will disappear, and the kingdom of Heaven
will be realized." It is clearly impossible to devote even
a fragment of my last lecture to an argument on this
subject ; I can only state my own firm conviction that
the result of this policy would be the accentuating and
embittering of religious rivalries to an extent that
would dispose men who care for a religion of soberness
and peace to stand aloof from religious organizations,
and to leave them to be fought over by fanatics. Even

190 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIII.

in countries where no established Church has existed
the same ecclesiastical rivalries are found ; but if to
other causes of rivalry were added a great and powerful
Church, with a smarting sense of wrong, eager to regain
in influence what it had lost in position, no longer
restrained from aggressive proselytism by a sense of
responsibility to the nation, it seems probable that sec-
tarian animosities, far from being mitigated, would be
increased tenfold.

But to return. We cannot under any reasonable
theory acquiesce in a Christendom of sectarianism. We
must pray for a united Christendom. And if, besides
praying for it, we are to work towards it, it will not be
superfluous to ask, What is likely to be the basis of the
Christian society of the future \

Experience does not encourage us to expect that
the bases of religious association which have hitherto
prevailed will serve as the foundations of the future
temple. Identity of religious belief may be a strong,
but it is not a wide-reaching bond of religious union.
Indeed, the more keen is the interest in theology, the
more inadequate will it be found as the basis of union :
men's minds are differently constituted ; they see things
in different proportions ; they approach them from
opposite sides. The only way in which doctrine could
be made the primary ground of union would be by men
accepting without inquiry the authority of an infallible
Church ; and to those who study the signs of the times
this will hardly appear a probable solution of the
difficulty.

Lect. VIII.] THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 191

Nor are men likely to unite on the basis of Church
organization. The history of the Church before the
Reformation is surely a sufficient indication that mere
uniformity of external government is no guarantee for
spiritual life ; in the words of Baxter, 1 " This unity in
meer Profession is properly no Christian unity. ... If this
be all, it is but in the bark and shell that we are agreed :
it is but a seeming agreement, from the teeth out-
wards." It is a mistake indeed to disparage and under-
value organic unity ; the disorganized state of Chris-
tendom paralyzes Christian work, and makes us weak in
the presence of the enemy : but such unity must be the
product and result of the unity of the Spirit working
from within outwards, producing in men's minds that
sense of Christian brotherhood which will gradually
draw them together into a closer union. For any body
of Christians to say, " We, and we only, possess the true
and legitimate form of Church order, therefore it is the
duty of all who would be members of the one body to
conform to our model," is more likely to perpetuate dis-
union than to draw Christians together.

What, then, is the most promising basis on which
Christians can unite % If we go back to the origins of
Christianity, we shall find that the Church was pre-
eminently a beneficent organization. The fervour of
the first disciples at Jerusalem led them to unite in a
sort of religious communism : " All that believed were
together, and had all things common ; and they sold
their possessions and goods, and parted them to all,
1 Baxter's " Catholic Unity," p. 203.

192 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIII.

according as any man had need." The earliest Church
office, that of the diaconate, was clearly for purposes of
beneficence. 1 To minister to the saints was an acknow-
ledged and universal duty. St. Paul's journeys were to
some extent governed by his plans for the mutual assist-
ance of the Churches. He makes the dependence of
Christians on each other a fundamental principle of the
Church. And this being so, is it not at least possible
that, as Christian association found its first basis in
beneficence, so the remedy for our unhappy divisions
may be found rather in the principle of association for
philanthropic purposes than in a common theology or
a common ritual or a common organization ? " See how
these Christians love one another," was a tribute of
admiration extorted from observers without by the
mutual helpfulness of the primitive Church ; may not a
similar devotion to good works on a yet larger and more
comprehensive scale be a means towards restoring that
unity which perished in the attempt to enforce uni-
formity of belief and observance ? Certainly the present
age would seem to favour such a hope. For there is
springing up now a certain enthusiasm of humanity, an
impatience of preventable suffering, an eagerness to
make the life of the less-favoured classes brighter,
healthier, more natural, which points to the possibility
of a new social crusade against ignorance, against vice,
against the evils that oppress and darken the lives of
the helpless classes. It is a thing to be thankful for,

1 See Bishop Lightfoot's " Essay on tbe Christian Ministry,"
and Dr. Hatch's " Bampton Lectures."

Lect. VIII.] THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 193

that in an age of religious unsettlement, when so many
of the more thoughtful men have drifted from the old
moorings, there should be this rallying point in a new
and healthy interest in social reforms : if the Church of
Christ is in its ideal a world-wide society in which the
strong are to bear the burdens of the weak, and the rich
are to hold their wealth in trust for the poor, then such
an enthusiasm of philanthropy as that which our age is
witnessing is surely a hopeful augury for Christianity.
It may be that for the time men do not recognize it as
Christian ; they may call it altruism, the service of
humanity, or what they will ; but as Christ said to His
disciples, " He that is not against us is on our part," so
now surely He would claim as His disciples all whose
aim is not to be ministered unto but to minister; He
would say, " Forbid them not ; for there is no man which
shall do a mighty work in My Name, and be able
quickly to speak evil of Me." It is surely a hopeful sign
in Oxford, that, whereas fifty years ago the energy and
intellectual activity of the University was wholly
absorbed by theological controversy, now much of it is
directed into the more fruitful and more Christian channel
of social improvement. University settlements in East
London, college missions in the midst of artisan popu-
lations, educational movements to reach the middle
class, — these, and other like signs of the times, show that
Oxford is not unmindful of the Christian maxim, " To
whom much is given, of them shall much be required."
It is true that the formal and official aspect of religion
is less prominent here than it was a generation ago ; it

i94 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIII.

is true that subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles is

no longer a condition of membership in the University ;

it is true that the foundations are open to men of

any and of no religious belief : but if men are learning

here the lesson of effort for the good of others, the

lesson of responsibility for their brother-men, if they

are learning that we are members one of another, and

that if one member suffer all the members suffer with

it, then let us not dare to say that Oxford is no longer

a place of Christian education ; for what education can

be more Christian than that which teaches men to follow

the example of our Saviour Christ, and to be made like

unto Him ?

And if this is the case in Oxford, it is not less so

among serious-minded men elsewhere. The old Latin

rime says that Oxford controversies soon spread over the

country : —

" Chronica si penses, cum pngnant Oxonienses,
Post paucos menses volat ira per Angligenenses."

Surely we may hope that when the University turns its
mind to more peaceful interests, its example will spread
in this respect too, and that an intelligent and unselfish
interest in social problems will be more and more cha-
racteristic of the age in which we live. There is work
enough and to spare for all. Let us not doubt that in
working for our brethren we are working for Christ;
for He Himself has said, " Inasmuch as ye did it unto
one of these My brethren, even these least, ye did it
unto Me."

Such a basis of Church unity is more adapted to the

Lect. VIII.] THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 195

conditions of the present day than a dogmatic or an
institutional one. For ours is a democratic age, and no
system, either religious or political, can hope to stand
which does not rest upon a broad foundation of popular
interest. And it seems certain that men in the present
day are more likely to be interested in social and moral
problems than in the more abstract questions of theology.
Assuredly, if the Christian Church is to be a real power
"in the world, it can only be by frankly and unreservedly
throwing herself upon the people. It is no longer pos-
sible for the Church to rely upon traditional reverence or
upon high-sounding claims ; but if she will set herself,
in her Master's spirit, "to preach good tidings to the
poor, to proclaim release to the captives, and recover-
ing of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are
bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,"
there is no limit to the possibilities that are before
her. If she will not timidly confine herself to a narrow
circle of so-called religious duties, but will boldly claim
as her own all human interests — humani nihil a se
alienum putans — she may yet set forth the religion of
the Son of Man as the religion of humanity, and may
show that the service of Christ is indeed the service of
man.

I endeavoured in a former lecture to show that
Christian theology, being man's conception of God and
of his own relation to Gk>d, is a progressive science,
and that God's revelation of Himself was not closed
with the completion of the Canon of the New Testament.
If we believe that all light and knowledge have their

196 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIII.

source in God, we cannot doubt that to this our age
God has revealed and is revealing Himself very specially.
And it is vain to say that science does not come into
contact with religion. There is absolutely no section of
the Church and no school of thought that has not been
consciously, or perhaps more often unconsciously, affected
by modern knowledge and modern methods. It is not
so much that any particular discovery has upset this or
that theory of Scripture interpretation or system of evi-
dences, but rather that there has been a general though
gradual onward movement, and it is only by looking
back that we can see how great the advance has been.
Who would now maintain the letter of the Mosaic
cosmogony against the conclusions of geology and
astronomy ? Who would now apply to the Bible,
words spoken from this pulpit within the recollection
of many of us : " Every book of it, every chapter of it,
every verse of it, every word of it, every syllable of it,
— (ivhere are we to stop ?) — every letter of it is the
direct utterance of the Most High ? " x Who would
now refuse to recognize discrepancies and inaccuracies
even in the Gospel narratives 1 Who would now make
miracles the primary evidence of Christianity, as was
generally done by the writers of the last century 1 And
yet, is Christianity less operative, less influential, less
of a motive force than it formerly was ? Do men care
less for the spirit of the Bible, because the superstitious
reverence for its letter has been overthrown ? And if
this process has gone on in the past, may we not reason-
1 Burgon, "Inspiration and Interpretation," p. 89.

Lect. VIII.] THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 197

ably conclude that it will go on in the future ? It is not
for us, indeed, to forecast the working of the Spirit of
God in the minds of men ; but yet we can hardly doubt
that it will be in the direction of a more spiritual con-
ception of God and of His kingdom, and that, as in the
past so in the future, men will find that the things
which they have contended over, and for which they
have persecuted each other, are really but the outside
expression of religion, and that the things Avhich seemed
to them too simple to be dwelt upon, are, after all, the
things that are eternal. For experience teaches us that
it is the simple things that are the great things ; and as
we grow older we learn a new sense of proportion and
a new measure of the importance of doctrine. As Baxter
says, " I value all things according to their use and end.
That is the best Doctrine and Study which maketh men
better, and tendeth to make them happy." 1

Surely the lesson that Ave need is to have faith in
God ; to trust not in our own formulas and systems, not
in spasmodic revivals, but in the power of the living
God. We are too apt to identify the kingdom of God
with our preconceived theories ; and then, if our theories
fail, we think that the gates of hell have prevailed, and
that God's cause is lost. But God's cause does not
depend upon our theories, and it will outlive them.
And it is a law of God's kingdom, that all spiritual
progress demands sacrifice. 2 The Jew before entering
Christ's kingdom had to give up the letter of the Old

1 Baxter's "Life and Times," p. 127.

2 Of. Westcottrs " Christus Consummator," pp. 4, 5.

198 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIII.

Covenant and the worship of his forefathers, and to
surrender his exclusive position, and to welcome as
brethren those whom he had regarded as beyond the
reach of God's favour. But he gained the power of
ku owing and worshipping the spiritual Christ. Luther
had to go through a fierce struggle in breaking with the
monastic life and the traditions of his education to fight
the battle of Christian freedom. But the sacrifice of the
letter enabled him to rise to the religion of the spirit,
and to assert the priesthood of the Christian people. And
so it may be that we shall have to sacrifice some of our
prepossessions, some of the things which we have identi-
fied with Christ's religion, some of the oldness of the
letter, in order to accept the newness of the spirit. Only
let us be patient ; let us not be over-anxious to have a
complete theory, that stands four-square on all points ;
let us be content to wait for more light ; let us ask that
we may have ears to hear and eyes to see and hearts to
understand God's progressive revelation in science, in
the widening interpretation of Scripture, in the growth
of new social and industrial types. And let us beware
of caring more for our own views or our own
special organization, than for the promotion of right
and well-being and good living. Let us beware of the
temptation to postpone truth and justice to religion and
piety.

The history of religious thought may well teach us
modesty and forbearance. How often has it happened
that the views which one generation proscribes as
dangerous the next tolerates, and the third accepts as

Lect. VIII.] THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 199

truth ! How often have divines rushed to protest
against opinions which their successors have defended as
harmless ! Evolution, which not many years ago was
solemnly denounced in Oxford by an eloquent Bishop
and a popular statesman, is now maintained as con-
sistent with the most unblemished orthodoxy. Yes, not
only the blood of the martyrs but sometimes even the
ashes of the heretics may claim to be the seed of the
Church.

And if our modes of thought, no less do our external
methods require adaptation to the needs of a new age.
We can hardly doubt, for instance, that if the older
Churches are to hold their own in the new world, it
must be by learning from their younger sisters the secret
of popularizing their institutions. The Church of
England in particular, from no fault of her own but by
the force of circumstances, has drifted into a position
which is hardly tolerable, in which the minister of each
parish is practically autocratic, while the people are
purely passive and receptive. This is not the occasion
for suggesting remedies for this evil ; but assuredly, if
the Church of England is to continue to be the only
organized society in the country whose members have no
opportunity of giving effect to their deliberate judgment,
it can hardly be but that much of the religious energy
and thoughtfulness of the age will cease to flow in the
ancient bed of the stream, and will find other and freer
channels for itself.

And as at home, so too in its relations to those that
are without, the Church must learn more modern

200 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIII.

methods. When the Church first became conscious of
responsibility in relation to the heathen, the idea of
missions was a simple one. It was, first to proclaim to
them that they were perishing, and. that their only hope
lay in the acceptance of the Christian faith ; and. then to
offer them our organization, our forms of worship, our
doctrinal formulas, our highly developed, type of
European Christianity. 1 It is not surprising that the
attempt to convert Orientals into English Churchmen or
Scottish Presbyterians or American Baptists should
have met with but moderate success. It would surely
be more in accordance with the Apostolic model to set
before men the Christianity of the New Testament in
its simplest form — Christ as the revelation of the
Father, the Spirit as the indwelling of God in man, with
perhaps some rudimentary and provisional organization,
and then to leave the vital principle to develop an
outward framework such as might be adapted to its
environment. The more suitable our English type of
Christianity may be to Englishmen, the less is it likely
to meet the requirements of men of other races.

I have endeavoured, in these lectures, to bring out
according to my power the distinction between the
permanent and the transitory, between the essential and
the accidental, in the Christian religion and life. It is
a great subject, and no one can be more conscious than
I am how much has been left unsaid, how much might

1 Cf. a sermon on the " Evangelization of India," preached
before the University in 1857, by Rev. G. H. Curteis, Fellow of
Exeter College.

Lect. VIII.] THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 201

have been better said. It is a question beset with
difficulties, but it is one on the solution of which
depends the future of Christianity. It is one on which
there will be many different judgments, and which
demands candour, mutual forbearance, and an honest
endeavour to look at it from all points of view. The
temper required is, as was said in a former lecture, that
of the householder who brino;eth forth out of his treasure
things new and old. We must not, indeed, cling to the
old because it is old, nor yet grasp at the new because it
is new ; we must try to preserve and keep fresh what is
good in the old, and to welcome and use to the utmost
what is true in the new. And have not we of the
Church of England a very special advantage in this
respect 1 Combining as we do the stateliness of the
ancient formularies with much of freedom of thought,
much of flexibility and capacity for adaptation ; the letter
of the ancient confessions with the spirit of modern
inquiry ; uniting, as we do, in one communion men of the
most opposite temper — men reverencing the old, like Dr.
Pusey, and men eagerly welcoming the new, like Arthur
Stanley, — are not we marked out by our very position
and inheritance to mediate- between the past and the
future, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,
and the hearts of the children to their fathers ; to
temper the eager impetuosity of youth with the calm
wisdom of old age ? Yes, upon us is laid by God's
providence the great work of claiming for Christ the
science, the criticism, the philosophy, the democratic life
of the new age ; of so welding together the old and the

202 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIII.

new, that there may be no breach of continuity, no
revolutionary shock, but that the new social and
intellectual life of England may be not less but more
Christian than that of our forefathers. "We have heard
with our ears, God, our fathers have told us, what
Thou hast done in their time of old ; " and if we have
faith, and doubt not, He has yet greater things in store
for us, and for our children.

I concluded my first lecture with a word of advice
to you, my younger hearers. Suffer me to address you
once more in concluding my last. I warned you then
against trusting to the letter, against the tendency to
make religion too much a matter of system and organi-
zation. Let me warn you to-day against too hastily
dispensing with outward helps. What strikes one most
in modern Oxford is the almost total relaxation of
academical discipline. It may be that there was too
much of it in days gone by ; it may be that there is too
little of it now. But however this may be, it lays on
you the responsibility of disciplining your own life. If
your life is to flow in a strong concentrated current, and
to overbear obstacles, you must build strong barriers to
prevent its spreading all abroad and losing itself in
shallows. " Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self- control'"'
— that is what you must aim at. And the best helps to
these things are the old and simple ones — prayer, the
intelligent study of Scripture, self-recollectedness, com-
munion with Christ. Let me conclude with the glowing
words addressed to the young men of his day by one
who was dear to many of us, words which some here
may remember.

Lect. VIII.] THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 203

" Be as free, be as liberal, be as courageous as you
will ; but be religious, because you are liberal ; be
devout, because you are free ; be pure, because you are
bold ; cast away the works of darkness, because you are
the children of light ; be humble, and considerate, and
forbearing, because you are charged with hopes as grand
as were ever committed to the rising generation of any
Church or of any country. These hopes are for you to
destroy or to fulfil. On you, more than on any other force
or power amongst us, depends the life and soul of any
true, Christian, manly progress in Oxford or in
England." '

And now I bring this course of sermons to a close. If
anything has been said contrary to God's Will, may He
pardon and blot it out ; if anything in accordance with
His Will, may He accept and make it fruitful. " Domine
Deus, qusecunque dixi de tuo, agnoscant et tui ; si qua
de meo, et Tu ignosce et tui."

ADDITIONAL NOTE TO LECTUEE VIII.

I venture to append to this Lecture the eloquent passage in
whioh Dean Milman, in the peroration of his " Latin Christianity,"
speaks of the future of Teutonic Christianity : —

" Its intellectual faith will be more robust ; nor will its emo-
tional be less profound and intense. But the strength of its
intellectual faith (and herein is at once its glory and its danger)
will know no limits to its daring speculation. How far Teutonic
Christianity may in some parts already have gone almost or abso-
lutely beyond the pale of Christianity, how far it may have lost

1 «,

' Great Opportunities." A farewell sermon preached before
the University of Oxford on Advent Sunday, 1863, by Arthur
Penrhyn Stanley, D.D.

2o 4 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT [Lect. VIII.

itself in its unrebnked wanderings, posterity only will know.
What distinctness of conception, what precision of language may
be indispensable to true faith ; what part of the ancient dogmatic
system may be allowed silently to fall into disuse, as at least
superfluous, and as beyond the proper range of human thought and
human language ; how far the sacred records may, without real
peril to their truth, be subjected to closer investigation ; to what
wider interpretation, especially of the Semitic portion, those records
may submit, and wisely submit, in order to harmonize them with
the irrefutable conclusions of science ; how far the Eastern veil of
allegory which hangs over their truth may be lifted or torn away
to* show their unshadowed essence ; how far the poetic vehicle
through which truth is conveyed may be gently severed from the
truth ; — all this must be left to the future historian of our religion.
As it is my own confident belief that the words of Christ, and His
words alone (the primal, indefeasible truths of Christianity), shall
not pass away ; so I cannot presume to say that men may not
attain to a clearer, at the same time more full and comprehensive
and balanced sense of those words, than has as yet been generally
received in the Christian world. As all else is transient and
mutable, these only eternal and universal, assuredly, whatever
light may be thrown on the mental constitution of man, even on the
constitution of nature, and the laws which govern the world, will
be concentered so as to give a more penetrating vision of those
undying truths. Teutonic Christianity (and this seems to be its
mission and privilege), however nearly in its more perfect form it
may already have approximated, may approximate still more
closely to the absolute and perfect faith of Christ; it may discover
and establish the sublime unison of religion and reason ; keep in
tone the triple-chorded harmony of faith, holiness, and charity ;
assert its own freedom, know the bounds of that freedom, respect
the freedom of others. Christianity may yet have to exercise a
far wider, even if more silent and untraceable influence, through
its primary, all-penetrating, all-pervading principles, on the civili-
zation of mankind."

To this I would add a passage from a less-known writing of the
same author, the sermon on " Hebrew Prophecy," preached before
the University in 1865 : —

"Of the future of Christianity what Christian will presume
to despair ? May not that future be the more complete redintegra-
tion of that eternal union, the more solemn ratification, as it were,

Lect. VIII.] THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 205

of that heaven-blessed marriage sacrament, the more perfect fusion
of the religious and moral elements of our faith ? We ntay believe
not less profoundly, though we believe in a more Christian spirit.
As it will most need, so the highest civilization will submit, and
only submit, to a Christianity which has shaken off all unworthy
superstitions, the encrustation of ages upon its simpler doctrines.
... I cannot and will not believe but that the advancement of
mankind in arts, in science, in knowledge, in the knowledge of
itself, the history of our race, the limits of our intellectual faculties,
the powers of our language, in the intercommunion of family with
family of nations, in civil and religious liberty, and in all that
expands and elevates our being, will eventually harmonize and enter
into closer fellowship with the religion of Christ."

APPENDIX

It has been thought that the following brief account of the founder
of the Bampton Lectures, and of the Lectures themselves, may-
be interesting.

John Bampton was born in 1689. He was educated at Trinity-
College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1709, and M.A. in
1712. Having taken Orders, he was in 1718 collated to the pre-
bend of Minor pars altaria in the cathedral church of Salisbury,
which preferment he held till his death in 1751. He left his
lands and estates to found the Bampton Lectures ; an extract
from his will is prefixed to each year's volume of lectures. His
bequest did not take effect till 1779, twenty-eight years after his
death, when the first lecturer was chosen. At this time the
estates produced a yearly income of £120.

The following are the names of the preachers and their sub-
jects. Although the founder provides that the lecturer shall be
of the degree of Master of Arts, at least, in one of the Universities
of Oxford or Cambridge, it does not appear that any Cambridge
man was appointed until the year 1874 —

1780. James Bandinel, D.D., Jesus. "The Peculiar Doctrines of

Christianity."

1781. Timothy Neve, D.D., Merton. "Jesus Christ the Saviour of

the World and Eedeemer of Mankind."

1782. Bobert Holmes, M.A., New College. " On the Prophecies

and Testimony of John the Baptist and the Parallel
Prophecies of Jesus Christ."

1783. John Cobb, D.D., St. John's. "An Enquiry after Happi-

ness : Natural Beligion, the Gospel, etc."

1784. Jos. White, B.D., Wadham. " A Comparison of Chiistianity

and Mohammedanism in their History, their Evidence,
and their Effects."

208 APPENDIX

1785. Ealph Churton, M.A., Brasenose. " Oa the Prophecies re-

specting the Destruction of Jerusalem."

1786. George Croft, DD., University. "The Use and Abuse of

Eeason ; Objections against Inspiration considered ; the
Authority of the Ancient Fathers examined, etc."

1787. William Hawkins, M.A., Pembroke. " On Scripture

Mysteries."

1788. Eichard Shepherd, D.D., Corpus. " The Ground and Credi-

bility of the Christian Eeligion."

1789. Edward Tatham, D.D., Lincoln. " The Chart and Scale of

Truth." 2 vols.

1790. Henry Kett, M.A., Trinity. "The Conduct and Opiuions

of the Primitive Christians, with Eemarks on Gibbon and
Priestley."

1791. Eobert Morres, M.A., Brasenose. "On Faith in General,

etc."

1792. John Eveleigh, D.D., Provost of Oriel. "The Substance,

History, and Evidences of our Eeligion."

1793. James Williamson, B.D., Queen's. " The Truth, Inspiration,

Authority, and Evidence of the Scriptures considered and
defended."

1794. Thomas Wintle, B.D., Pembroke. "The Expediency, Pre-

diction, and Accomplishment of the Christian Eedemption
illustrated."

1795. Daniel Veysie, B.D., Oriel. "The Doctrine of Atonement

illustrated and defended."

1796. Eobert Gray, M.A., St. Mary Hall. "The Principles upon

which the Eeformation of the Church of England was
established."

1797. W. Finch, D.C.L., St. John's. "The Objection of Infidel

Historians and other Writers against Christianity con-
sidered."

1798. Charles Henry Hall, B.D., Christ Church. "Fulness of

Time ; or the Steps by which Almighty God gradually
prepared the Way for the Introduction and Promulgation
of the Gospel."

1799. William Barrow, D.C.L., Queen's. " Answers to some Popular

Objections against the Necessity or Credibility of the
Christian Eevelation."

1800. G. Eichards, M.A., Oriel. "The Divine Origin of Prophecy

illustrated and defended."

APPENDIX 2og

1801. George Stanley Faber, M.A., Lincoln. "Horje Mosaics; or

a View of the Mosaical Eeoords, with Eespect to their
Coincidence with Profane Antiquity, their Internal
Credibility, and their Connexion with Christianity."
2 vols.

1802. George Frederick Nott, B.D., All Souls. " Eeligious Enthu-

siasm." (This course was directed against Wesley and
Whitfield.)

1803. John Farrer, M. A., Queen's. " On the Mission and Character

of Christ, and on the Beatitudes."

1804. Eichard Lawrence, D.C.L., University. "An Attempt to

Illustrate those Articles of the Church of England which
the Calvinists improperly consider as Calvinistical."

1805. Edward Nares, M.A., Merton. " A View of the Evidences of

Christianity at the Close of the Pretended Age of Eeason."

1806. J. Brown, M.A., Corpus. " The Infancy of Human Nature."

1807. Thomas Le Mesurier, M.A., New College. "The Nature

and Guilt of Schism considered with a Particular Eefer-
ence to the Principles of the Eeformation."

1808. J. Penrose, M.A., Corpus. " An Attempt to prove the Truth

of Christianity from the Wisdom displayed in its Original
Establishment, and from the History of False and
Corrupted Systems of Eeligion."

1809. J. B. S. Carwithen, M.A., St. Mary Hall. " A View of the

Brahminical Eeligion in its Confirmation of the Truth of
the Sacred History, and in its Influence on the Moral
Character."

1810. T. Falconer, M.A., Corpus. "Certain Principles in Evan-

son's ' Dissonance of the Four generally received Evange-
lists, etc' examined."

1811. J. Bidlake, D.D., Christ Church. " The Truth and Con-

sistency of Divine Eevelation, with some Eemarks on the
Contrary Extremes of Infidelity and Enthusiasm."

1812. Eichard Mant, M.A., Oriel. " An Appeal to the Gospel ; or,

an Inquiry into the Justice of the Charge, alleged by the
Methodists and other Objectors, that the Gospel is not
preached by the National Clergy."

1813. J. Collinson, M.A., Queen's. " A Key to the Writings of the

Principal Fathers of the Christian Church who flourished
during the First Three Centuries."

210 APPENDIX

1814. William Van Mildert, D.D., Christ Church. An Inquiry

into the General Principles of Scripture Interpretation."

1815. Reginald Heber, M.A., All Souls. "The Personality and

Office of the Christian Comforter asserted and ex-
plained."

1 816. John Hume Spry, M. A., Oriel. " Christian Unity doctrinally

and historically considered."

1817. John Miller, M. A., Worcester. "The Divine Authority of

Holy Scripture asserted, from its Adaptation to the Real
State of Human Nature."

1818. Charles Abel Moysey, M.A., Christ Church. "The Doc-

trines of the Unitarians examined as opposed to the
Church of England."

1819. Hector Davies Morgan, M.A., Trinity. "A Compressed

View of the Religious Principles and Practices of the
Age ; or, a Trial of the Chief Spirits that are in the World
by the Standard of the Scriptures."

1820. Godfrey Faussett, M.A., Magdalen. " The Claims of the

Established Church to Exclusive Attachment and Support,
and the Dangers which menace her from Schism and
Indifference."

1821. John Jones, M.A., Jesus. " The Moral Tendency of Divine

Revelation asserted and illustrated."

1822. Richard Whately, M.A., Oriel. "The Use and Abuse of

Party-feeling in Matters of Religion."

1823. C. Goddard, D.D., Christ Church. " The Mental Condition

necessary to a Due Inquiry into Religious Evidence,
stated and exemplified."

1824. John Josias Conybeare, M.A., Christ Church. "An Attempt

to trace the History and ascertain the Limits of the
Secondary and Spiritual Interpretation of Scripture."

1825. George Chandler, D.C.L., New College. "The Scheme of

Divine Revelation considered principally in its Connexion
with the Progress and Improvement of Human Society."

1 826. William Vaux, M. A., Balliol. " The Benefits annexed to a

Participation in the Two Christian Sacraments of Baptism
and the Lord's Supper."

1827. Henry Hart Milman, M.A., Brasenose. " The Character and

Conduct of the Apostles, considered as an Evidence of
Christianity."

APPENDIX 211

1828. Thomas Home, B.D., Christ Church. "The Eeligious

Necessity of the Keformation asserted, and the Extent to
which it was carried in the Church of England vin-
dicated."

1829. Edward Burton, D.D., Christ Church. " The Heresies of the

Apostolic Age."

1830. Henry Soames, M.A., Wadham. " The Doctrines of the

Anglo Saxon Church."

1831. T. W. Lancaster, M.A., Queen's. " The Popular Evidence of

Christianity stated and explained."

1832. Eenn Dickson Hampden,- M.A., Oriel. "The Scholastic

Philosophy considered in its Kelation to Christian
Theology."

1833. Fred. Nolan, D.C.L., Exeter. "The Analogy of Eevelation

and Science established."

1834. No appointment.

1835. No appointment.

1836. Charles Atmore Ogilvie, M.A., Balliol. " The Divine Glory

manifested in the Conduct and Discourses of our
Lord."

1837. Thomas Stuart Lyle Vogan, M.A., St. Edmund's Hall.

"The Principal Objections against the Doctrine of the
Trinity, and a Portion of the Evidence on which that
Doctrine is received by the Catholic Church re-
viewed."

1838. Henry A. Woodgate, B.D., St. John's. "The Authoritative

Teaching of the Church shown to be in Conformity with
Scripture, Analogy, and the Moral Constitution of
Man."

1839. William D. Conybeare, M;A., Christ Church. " An Ana-

lytical Examination of the Character, etc., of the Christian
Fathers during the Ante-Nicene Period."

1840. Edward Hawkins, D.D., Provost of Oriel. "An Enquiry

into the Connected Uses of the Principal Means of attain-
ing Christian Truth."

1841. Samuel Wilberforce, M.A., Oriel. (No lectures delivered,

owing to a domestic affliction.)

1842. James Garbett, M.A., Brasenose. " Christ, as Prophet

Priest, and King; being a Vindication of the Church of
England from Theological Novelties."

2i2 APPENDIX

1843. Anthony Grant, D.O.L., New College. "The Past and

Prospective Extension of the Gospel by Missions to the
Heathen."

1844. Eiohard William Jelf, D.D., Canon of Christ Church. " An

Inquiry into the Means of Grace, their Mutual Connexion
and Combined Use, with Especial Reference to the Church
of England."

1845. Charles Abel Heurtley, B.D., Corpus. "Justification."

1846. Augustus Short, M.A., Christ Church. " The Witness of the

Spirit with our Spirit."

1847. Plight Eev. Walter Augustus Shirley, D.D., New College.

" The Supremacy of Holy Scripture." (This course was
not completed, owing to the death of the lecturer.)

1848. Edward Garrard Marsh, M.A., Oriel. "The Christian

Doctrine of Sanctification considered."

1849. Eichard Michell, B.D., Lincoln. "The Nature and Com-

parative Value of the Christian Evidences considered
generally."

1850. Edward Meyrick Goulburn, M.A., Merton. " The Doctrine

of the Eesurrection of the Same Body as taught in Holy
Scripture."

1851. Henry Bristow Wilson, B.D., St. John's. " The Communion

of Saints. An Attempt to illustrate the True Principles
of Christian Union."

1852. Joseph Esmond Eiddle, MA., St. Edmund Hall. "The

Natural History of Infidelity and Superstition in contrast
with Christian Faith."

1853. William Thomson, M.A., Queen's. " The Atoning Work of

Christ, viewed in Eelation to some Current Theories."

1854. Hon. Samuel Waldegrave, M.A., All Souls. "New Testa-

ment Millenarianism ; or, the Kingdom and Coming of
Christ, as taught by Himself and His Apostles."

1855. J. E. Bode, M.A. Christ Church. " The Absence of Pre-

cision in the Formularies of the Church of England
Scriptural, and suitable to a State of Probation."

1856. Edward A. Litton, M.A., Oriel. " The Mosaic Dispensation

considered as Introductory to Christianity."

1857. William Edward Jelf, B.D., Christ Church. "Christian

Faith, Comprehensive, not Partial ; Definite, not Un-
certain."

APPENDIX 2I3

1858. H. Longueville Hansel, B.D., St. John's. "The Limits of

Beligious Thought examined."

1859. George Eawlinson, M.A., Exeter. "The Historical Evi-

dences of the Truth of the Scripture Records, stated anew,
with Special Eeference to the Doubts and Discoveries of
Modern Times."

1860. James Augustus Hessey, D.C.L., St. John's. "Sunday: its

Origin, History, and Present Obligation."

1861. John Sandford, B.D., Balliol. " The Mission and Extension

of the Church at Home."

1862. Adam Storey Earrar, M. A., Queen's. " A Critical History of

Free Thought in Eeference to the Christian Eeligion."
1803. John Hannah, D.C.L., Lincoln. " The Eel ation between the

Divine and Human Elements in Holy Scripture."
1864. Thomas Dehany Bernard, M.A., Exeter. "The Progress of

Doctrine in the New Testament."
1805. James B. Mozley, B.D., Magdalen. "Miracles."

1866. Henry Parry Liddon, D.D., Christ Church. "The Divinity

of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

1867. E. Garbett, M.A., Pembroke. "Dogmatic Faith."

1868. G. Moberly, D.C.L., Balliol. "The Administration of the

Holy Spirit in the Body of Christ."

1869. E. Payne Smith., D.D., Canon of Christ Church. " Prophecy

a Preparation for Christ."

1870. "William J. Irons, D.D., Queen's. " Christianity as taught by

St. Paul."

1871. George H. Curteis, M.A., Exeter. "Dissent in its Eelation

to the Church of England."

1872. J. E. T. Eaton, M.A., Merton. "The Permanence of

Christianity."

1873. Isaac Gregory Smith, M.A., Brasenose. " Characteristics of

Christian Morality."
187-1. Stanley Leathes, M.A., Jesus College, Cambridge. "The
Eeligion of Christ, its Historic and Literary Development
Evidence of its Origin."

1875. W. Jackson, M. A., Worcester. " The Doctrine of Eetribution."

1876. Eight Eev. William Alexander, D.D., Brasenose. "The

Witness of the Psalms to Christ."

1877. C. A. Eow, M.A., Pembroke. "Christian Evidence and

Modern Thought."

2i 4 APPENDIX

1878. C. H. H. Wright, M.A., Exeter. "Zechariah and his

Prophecies, considered in Eelation to Modern Criticism. '\

1879. H. Wace, M.A., Brasenose. " The Foundations of Faith."

1880. Edwin Hatch, M.A., Pembroke. " The Organization of the

Early Christian Churches."

1881. John Wordsworth, M. A., Brasenose. " The One Eeligion."

1882. Peter Goldsmith Medd, M.A., University. "The One

Mediator. The Operation of the Son of God in Nature
and in Grace."

1883. Hon. William Henry Fremantle, M.A., Balliol. " The World

as the Subject of Eedemption."

1884. Eight Eev. Frederick Temple, D.D., Balliol. "The Bela-

tions between Eeligion and Science."

1885. Frederick William Farrar, D D., Trinity College, Cambridge.

" The History of Interpretation."

1886. Charles Bigg, D.D., Corpus. "The Christian Platonists of

Alexandria."

1887. Eight Eev. William Boyd Carpenter, D.D., St. Katherine's

College, Cambridge. "The Permanent Elements of
Eeligion."

1888. Eobert Edward Bartlett, M.A., Trinity. "The Letter and

the Spirit."

°[

U ,-&*->' '" *s

!

.v-'fyy-ts

n

j<[ /-,-rVVvj

/

11111' 'InH